Magnolias In Bloom
by verisimilitude9
Summary: A 17-year-old boy in mourning travels from the city to a small town to help an ailing relative for the summer, In the process, he makes new friends, learns to cope and falls in love. A coming of age story. Minako/Kunzite AU.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So, this started out as a fragment written for a prompt, and due to the encouragement and prodding of various (VO1 in particular), blew up into a huge chaptered behemoth. Go figure.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it. Okay?

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Kevin Ellis was a fish out of water from the moment he stepped out of the cab in middle-of-nowhere, Georgia, into the sultry heat of a June day before rain. The jeans he wore were all but plastered to his legs in the heat, and the dust of the gravelly road that led, eventually, to Great-Aunt Emmaline's house grimed the stark white canvas of his tennis shoes. The air was silent but for the buzz of a few bumblebees and the faint splash of a sprinkler on a bright green lawn across the street.

Kevin rubbed one hand over his forehead, shifting sweaty hair out of his eyes. Technically, it had been his choice to come to Georgia this summer, and it was a better choice than the alternative. Ever since the drunk driver had plowed into his mother's car on her way back from the supermarket, the apartment had been empty, nearly as empty as his father's eyes when he was home at all. John Ellis smoked too much, spent his days and most of his evenings at his office, staring at black numbers and white paper as though already-completed invoices could take him away from the truth. The bills came through the mail, and Kevin paid them before the due dates. The checkbook that his father kept in the kitchen was set amidst the flotsam of greasy-bottomed pizza boxes and empty soft drink cans. The bank statements showed no sign of detection that he had managed due to necessity to become quite good at forging his father's signature.

When the letter came from the Georgia hospital that Great-Aunt Emmaline had broken her hip and needed some help over the summer, Kevin had read it through like he did any of his father's other correspondence. Emmaline Thomas was seventy-two, plump, and smelled like lemon bars and sweet tea and talcum, and she'd practically raised Kevin's mother after her parents had divorced. It would be a change of scene, a change of pace...

And he'd PROBABLY not have to eat pizza five nights a week.

Shutting the gloomy thoughts off with a click, he dragged his luggage cart over the pitted, gravelly sidewalk towards a front porch bleached by the sun and crimsoned by flourishing geraniums in terra-cotta pots. Kevin knew, as he'd spoken to Great-Aunt Emmaline on the telephone earlier that week, that underneath the pot closest to the door would be a spare key.

"I'm HERE!" Kevin called out after unlocking the door. The house was mostly as he remembered, aside from the dust on the family photos on the wall and the smell of antiseptic replacing the smell of lemon oil and lavender sachet. "Auntie?"

"I'm here, dearie," came a voice somewhere from the back parlour. Kevin's shoes sounded overly loud on the wooden floor, and when he turned a corner, he encountered a wispy-haired figure in a calico housedress lying on the settee, a self-help book resting facedown on her stomach and a mazy smile on her face. Great-Aunt Emmaline's plumpness seemed diminished by her injury, and she seemed smaller somehow, in a room filled with china dolls and doilies. She beamed up at him and struggled into a sitting position. "I am SO glad you're here. It's been so lonely."

That, at least, Kevin could understand, so he nodded. Through the open window came a breeze that did nothing to cool the air, but wafted the muslin curtains like curls of steam and brought in a heady, sultry scent of flowers. It was almost too sweet.

"Isn't that magnolia tree the loveliest thing you've ever seen?" Great-Aunt Emmaline nodded at the swan-white blooms visible through the parlour window. "This has been an especially good year for my garden. If only I hadn't slipped on that dratted staircase... I'm really rather worried that once the weather truly warms up, it'll become a mess of weeds. It was really very sweet of you to come over to help me out."

Kevin coughed and looked away. He knew nothing about gardens and magnolia trees.

~*~

"Now, the trick to making good mashed potatoes is to not skimp on the butter and garlic," Great-Aunt Emmaline's voice was endlessly patient as she sat in a wheelchair by the kitchen counter, watching Kevin awkwardly peel potatoes over the sink. "I like to add a bit of sour cream to mine as well, and basil. Gives it flavour, you know?" She whisked a bowl of egg whites in her lap as she spoke, fingers efficient and deft despite their arthritis. "I taught your mother how to make mashed potatoes when she was a little girl a few years younger than you are now. Dear me, how time has flown... she was such a sweet child, little Laurie." A tear slid down the papery cheek, but Emmaline managed a smile. "You have her eyes, but her hair was much curlier."

Kevin knew that, of course, but he didn't really want to think about his mother now. Silently, he chopped the peeled potatoes into cubes and put them in the pot to boil.

Dinner was a peaceful affair. Cold chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed corn and lemon meringue pie. The corn was a bit soggy and the potatoes were a bit too salty, but as far as Kevin was concerned, it was his first attempt cooking both items, so he could be forgiven. It wasn't pizza, either, and that was something.

He was on his second glass of sweet tea when Great-Aunt Emmaline actually broached the subject of his father.

"I was a bit surprised that your dad has not called yet," she said gently, her voice not much louder than the tinkle of ice cubes in the glass. "Why, when Laurie brought him home to meet me back before they married, I thought... never a nicer and more handsome man would I meet. And so sophisticated! He took us out to eat at the Italian restaurant in town. Laurie told me afterwards that she'd loved him from their college days at Cornell."

Kevin made a non-committal noise and stirred his glass with his straw. The lemon wedge sitting atop his tea twirled, a flare of gaudy yellow against woody-brown. "Dad's been busy," he muttered. "He's not home much."

Emmaline reached across the table and laid a cool hand over his arm. "Lauren was a special girl. All of us are grieving," she said softly. "Your father loved her very much, and he's lost right now."

There were tears in her voice, and Kevin wasn't so sure he wanted to listen any more, because tears were like yawns and a bit contagious, and seventeen was too old for that. He stood up abruptly, setting down his glass with a clank. "Look, I'll go outside and water your plants. I think I read something somewhere about how you're not supposed to water them when it's really hot outside as it'd just dry up again."

The screen door slammed behind his back before she could say anything, and it was an hour before he came back in, scratching at a mosquito bite on his forearm and scraping mud off his shoes. Great-Aunt Emmaline was still seated in the kitchen when he returned, and she gave him a smile. There was a trace of smudged mascara underneath her left eye, and Kevin felt something in him contract with a twinge.

He hadn't cried yet, over his mother's death. He wasn't sure when-- if-- when-- it would happen. He didn't know if it was better or worse not to.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks to those who are reading and even more to those who are reviewing, all... like three of you :P Anyway, yes, eventually Mina will appear. I promise.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

An immature part of Kevin was rather afraid of what 'helping' Great-Aunt Emmaline would actually entail, considering her injury. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to be entrusted with carrying her up and down stairs, or helping her bathe, but when it was time for bed that evening, she simply smiled at him and told him that the blue room upstairs had been prepared for his arrival, effectively dismissing him.

"What about you, Auntie?" Kevin had asked, shuffling his feet slightly. "I mean, you're downstairs... you want I should get you up to your room?"

"Oh no, dearie," Great-Aunt Emmaline shook her head. "Penelope will come in the morning and help me out with things. It would be an awful lot of work to get up and down these stairs at any rate." She smiled up at him and wheeled towards the bathroom. "I'll just tidy up for now, but dearie, could you pull out the sofa?"

For conscience's sake, Kevin did pull out the sofa bed and carefully covered it with sheets he'd found in a closet, and waited until she was comfortably settled in. He bent down awkwardly, too old really for this kind of nonsense, and let her kiss his cheek, and choked down a sudden wave of loneliness.

The blue room had always been a guest room, from what he recalled his mother telling him. There was a slightly nautical theme to it, with a ship in a bottle and an assortment of shells on the shelves and dresser. A pair of small seascape prints hung in silver frames on the pale blue wall. The bed was bigger than the one he had at home, and had a canopy of airy white curtains. Like the rest of the furniture in the room, it was a pale blond wood, and unlike the photographs in the front hallway, showed no signs of dust.

Kevin went to the window to push it open, and as he struggled with the latch, he remembered the first time he'd been in there, a whole ten years ago, and his mother had been standing in the exact spot he was in now as he begged her to take the ship in a bottle down from the shelf so he could take a look.

Abruptly, he shoved the window open, letting the night air and the scent of magnolias blast him in the face and blow away the memory. Meticulously, he undressed, taking the ship down from the shelf and putting it into the closet with his suitcase, out of sight. Suddenly drained, he crawled into bed wearing nothing but his boxers, and fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Around him, the white bedcurtains fluttered like sails or ghosts.

~*~

Kevin awoke in the morning to the sound of birdsong through the open window and for a few moments, forgot where he was.

His room at his father's house was functional and somewhat cluttered. The walls were white, decorated with a mish-mash of pictures ranging from an M.C. Escher print to an autographed poster of the Yankees to a glossy ad of a blonde bombshell in a classic convertible to a closet door entirely papered with Marvel comic book covers -- a project from his younger days that he'd never taken down. His desk there was a businesslike metal affair with a big swivel chair and a halogen lamp, and there was a black bean bag chair on the uncarpeted floor next to his iron-framed bed. The window was narrow, and he never slept with it open.

This room was too neat, too pretty and airy for him, and he didn't know if he made the right choice to come down here, after all. Change of scene though it might be, there were still too many reminders of his mother, and he wasn't sure that thinking of how she was in her youth would be better than remembering her how she was just before her death.

Nothing to do but to deal with it, though. He tossed aside the covers and haphazardly pulled clothing out of his suitcase. Noting remnants of grime underneath his fingernails from watering the garden last night, he decided upon a shower before going downstairs to face Great-Aunt Emmaline again.

He was just toweling off when he heard the sound of a new voice carrying from downstairs. "Good morning to you, Miz Emmaline. You're lookin' just fine today." The speaker was female, whose fluid tones bore a cadence just a trace different from the usual Georgian drawl.

"Thanks, Miss Penelope," Aunt Emmaline's smile was audible. "I appreciate you stopping by."

Somewhat curiously, Kevin made his way downstairs, and followed the sounds of conversation to the back parlour. Aunt Emmaline was sitting up on the sofa bed, beaming smiles at a short, moon-faced woman in a vivid blue cotton dress sprigged with pink flowers and laugh-lines around her nut-brown eyes. Miss Penelope wore sensible white shoes and carried a purse so large it could double as a gym bag, and when she saw him, she gave him a wide smile that showed surprisingly perfect white teeth against her cafe au lait skin.

"What a handsome boy. This must be the nephew I hear all the stories about then. I'm Penelope Harmon, and I do believe your name is Kevin Ellis."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded as she grasped his hand in her big, warm one. "Nice to meet you."

"Miss Penelope lives close by," Great-Aunt Emmaline smiled at Kevin. "She used to be a nurse before she retired, and she's been kind enough to come here for a half-hour every morning to help me."

"Oh." As he watched, Miss Penelope efficiently helped Emmaline from her sofa-bed into the wheelchair and rolled her out of the parlour. "Er, is there anything you want me to do?"

"I'll just be washing her up, so if you'll put the bed back to rights, dear, it would be a great help," Miss Penelope called from the bathroom just before she shut the door.

Kevin put away the sheets and pillows and pushed the bed back into the sofa. The book that Emmaline had been reading was lying facedown on the floor, and he picked it up. Underneath was a photograph that she'd been using as a bookmark, and Kevin was surprised to see himself in it. It was one of the many taken by his mother after his karate black belt kumite last year, and on the back, in black ballpoint pen, she'd written the date, less than two months before her death.

"What would you like for breakfast, dearie?" Great-Aunt Emmaline's voice broke through his thoughts, and he dropped the photograph facedown on the coffee table. The efficient Miss Penelope was wheeling her back into the parlour.

"Uh... nothing. I'm not that hungry yet. I'll just grab something for myself later."

"Nonsense," Miss Penelope shook her head as she led him firmly towards the kitchen. "Growing boy needs nutrition. Why, when my Willie was your age, he'd go through near half a dozen of my beignets every morning, plus grits and ham. It was a marvel. Takes after his daddy that way, though, and his boy's going to be the same way. Mind, Junior's only six, but it's easy to tell."

The retired nurse kept on a steady conversation as she made him whisk eggs and toast bread. Kevin learned that she and her husband were originally from New Orleans, but moved to Georgia to live with their oldest son after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Aside from Willie, who used to be in the Marines and coached football nowadays at the high school, she had three other children, all of whom were scattered around the country in places as far-reaching as Seattle and Detroit and Pittsburgh. She had a passel of grandchildren now, ranging in age from three months to nineteen years, and they were her pride and joy.

"Smells good," Emmaline had wheeled herself into the kitchen without Kevin's notice. Immediately awkward, he dumped some of the scrambled eggs onto a plate and added triangles of buttered toast. She beamed. "Looks even better."

"Your boy shows some good sense and has smart hands," Miss Penelope declared as she smoothed a napkin over Emmaline's lap. "Now eat up, boy. It should be beignets of such a beautiful morning, but you've none of the necessary ingredients, Miz Emmaline. I'll have one of the kids bring some up next time I'm in the spirit to make some."

"I'll have to give you something in return," Great-Aunt Emmaline pinked in pleasure. "You just let me know. Eat your breakfast, Kevin."

Perhaps it was due to the fact that they were still smoking hot from the pan, or perhaps it was due to the canny way that Miss Penelope had distracted him while she'd roped him into the role of sous chef. Either way, Kevin found himself inhaling his eggs and toast, and a bit less at a loss. Penelope and Emmaline discussed recipes while the latter ate and the former declined any food for herself ("Why, bless you, Miz Emmaline, but I've had me a hearty breakfast already before coming on over"), and debated over the proper amount of butter to put in a pound cake. Penelope glanced at her watch just as Kevin and Emmaline were finishing the last of their food, and declared it time for her to get on with her marketing, and exited with as much aplomb as she'd entered with.

Kevin washed the breakfast dishes and found himself privately thinking that Miss Penelope Harmon, all five feet two inches of her, might just be the most formidable person he'd ever met. And that this morning's breakfast was the first one he'd eaten unmarred by thoughts of the unpleasant reality of the present.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks as usual to those reading the story and in particular to those leaving feedback. Mina does appear in this chapter! Of a fashion. If you squint. I promise!

Disclaimer: Same as usual.

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The morning passed by uneventfully, and Kevin spent most of it organizing stacks upon stacks of back issues of Reader's Digest and National Geographic in Great-Aunt Emmaline's parlour bookshelf. Once in a while, he'd flip through and skim an article here and there that caught his eye, and subsequently ended up learning about topics as diverse as identity theft and emperor penguins and quite a few natural disasters. All the while, Great-Aunt Emmaline placidly sat in her wheelchair and did some kind of needlepoint type work -- he thought it was called macramade, maybe, but that also sounded like a Hawaiian import -- and hummed along with the golden oldies station on the radio. Kevin vaguely thought he recognized a sad, wistful song about yesterday as sung by the Beatles, but couldn't identify too much else, and would have preferred alternative rock.

They had a quick lunch of tuna sandwiches and fruit salad, and Kevin was just done putting the leftover pieces of pineapple and cantaloupe and watermelon in a tupperware container when he caught Aunt Emmaline eyeing him steadily. "Something the matter, Auntie?"

"Oh, don't you think that you should give your father a call, dear?" she asked gently. "You haven't talked to him since you came here, and he must be worried about you by now."

She seemed so certain of the fact that for a moment, all he felt was a hopeless anger: at her for not knowing anything about how his father was any more, at his father for losing any care he might have had for him after his mother's death, at himself for dwelling on it and yet not doing anything that might make it easier. Stolidly, he shook his head. "My dad's probably busy."

"Well, you can always leave him a message," Aunt Emmaline's voice was quiet and implacable, and she wheeled herself to the cordless phone on the kitchen counter. Picking it up in one hand and a floral-covered address book in the other, she rifled through the book for John Ellis' work number and dialed before handing the phone to Kevin.

"Ellis, Lowenstein and MacIntyre Accounting, this is Tracey," the crisply friendly voice of the firm's secretary picked up on the first ring. "How can I help you?"

"Hi, Tracey," Kevin said stonily.

"Kevin!" Tracey's voice warmed, though there was also an unmistakable note of sympathy. "Hi, I heard you're taking your summer vacation in Georgia. How are you?"

So his father did realise that he was, in fact, gone. Kevin squared his shoulders. "Okay. Yeah, something like that. My dad in?"

"Mmm," Tracey sighed softly as though in pity, and he heard the clacking of computer keys. "Hold on a minute. I'll just transfer you to his office, all right?"

Tasteful adult alternative music played in the background as she put him on hold and made the connection, and Kevin sighed. His father picked up after about half a song. "Yeah, Kevin?"

"Hi, dad," Kevin said in a voice of equal flatness.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Kevin frowned. "Just calling to say that I'm in Georgia and arrived safely and all." He gave Aunt Emmaline a half-hearted glare, because he HAD told her that it was pointless, hadn't he?

"Oh," John Ellis, never a man of many words, seemed particularly monosyllabic today. His voice was so expressionless that it might have been a recording. "Okay."

"I'll just let you go now," Kevin tried, but couldn't keep all the bitterness out of his voice. "I knew you'd be busy."

John Ellis drew in a breath, expelled. "I'll talk to you later, I guess," he muttered.

"Whatever," Kevin rolled his eyes. "You can get back to work now."

"Kevin." For the first time since the awkward, stilted conversation had started, there was an almost-human, faint note of emotion in his father's voice. "Tell Miss Emmaline I said hey. And... yeah, I'll talk to you later."

"Okay." Kevin hung up the phone, and tried not to squirm under Aunt Emmaline's gaze. "He says hi."

She smiled even as she carefully tucked the address book back in its spot. "You should have told him that I said hi, too. Maybe next time."

~*~

Kevin wanted to tell her that there would be no next time, and that he wouldn't have called this time had she not more or less forced his hand, but didn't have the heart to do so from the way she was looking at him. He decided instead to change the subject. "So, yesterday you were saying something about your garden and weeds and stuff."

Emmaline looked as though she wanted to steer the topic back to the original, difficult one, but after a moment's internal debate, acquiesced. "It rained a bit last night, but it's all dry now. Do you know how to mow a lawn, dear?"

Kevin Ellis, who had lived in New York City all his life and therefore had never done anything more advanced than watering a few houseplants, made a noncommittal gesture and walked outside. Unearthing the lawn-mower from the garage, he found an ancient, water-stained instructions manual on a shelf, and read it like one might study for a test. After a few experimental pokes and false starts, he managed to start up the machine, and carefully pushed it along the emerald grass of the back yard in a straight line.

By the time he got to the front yard, he had the technique down, and had removed his shirt in the sweltering Georgia heat. There were the glorious magnolia trees, along with a row of slim white birches that separated Emmaline's house from her neighbour's on the left side. Beds of purple pansies and white petunias grew, with a backdrop of the fleshy cream-and-jade leaves of hostas, along the walk up to the porch, and some type of vine, bearing sweet-smelling, delicate yellow flowers, clung to the trellis-work in the front of the house. Overhead, still open from last night, was his window.

Kevin was sweating by the time he finished the front lawn, but he'd managed to keep the rows even and it didn't look too bedraggled. Across the street, while he'd worked, two small boys had lugged out a folding table, two chairs, several stacks of paper cups, a wastebasket, a small box and a cardboard sign written in brightly coloured magic marker which read "Lemon Aid Stand, 25 Cents". Now, as he put the lawn-mower away, he watched as one of them opened the front door for the other, who was very carefully carrying a full glass pitcher tinkling with ice cubes.

One of the boys, who had a round, engaging face and bright brown eyes, evidently noticed Kevin's appraisal, and waved. "Hey mister! You want some lemonade? We just set up, and it's still nice and cold, and just the thing on a hot day."

Willing to oblige, Kevin dug a quarter out of his pocket and walked over. The first boy gave his friend a quick elbow, and the other one quickly poured Kevin a Dixie cup full and held it out. "Here you go, mister."

Handing over the coin, Kevin took the lemonade, sipped. Rather than the sugary coloured water that he expected, it was surprisingly good, tart and bracing and ice-cold. "It's delicious," he pronounced after draining the cup in two gulps. The first boy grinned even as he pushed over the wastebasket so that he could dispose of his cup.

"Every time Danny Elmer puts up a lemonade stand he only uses half a packet of mix and skimps awfully on the sugar," the first boy told him seriously. "He usually sets up at that house yonder, with the red shutters. He skimps because he says that way he makes more money because he has to buy less stuff, but my Nana always said that to cheat someone else is to cheat yourself." He cocked his head to the side and surveyed Kevin. "You're kin to Miss Emmaline, right? She makes really good brownies. I'm Junior."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded and watched as Junior opened up what looked to be a girl's jewelry box, bright blue plastic stencilled over with cheerful white and yellow daisies and pink hearts on the sides. Junior placed Kevin's quarter in one of the little compartments in the box, and slid it closed once again. On the lid of the box, surrounded by more flowers and hearts, were the initials M.A.

"Danny Elmer uses a piggy bank instead," Junior said matter-of-factly. "But then he tells people that he can't give them change unless he breaks the piggy and then they just let him keep it. That's cheating too, so I borrowed this box. It's okay as long as I don't get it dirty or nothing."

At this point, one of the ladies of the neighbourhood walked over and smilingly requested a cup of lemonade, and Kevin took his leave as Junior and his friend got busy with the new customer. As he walked back across the street, Junior waved. "Bye mister! Tell Miss Emmaline I said hi!"

Kevin nodded and waved back before going back into the house, heading for the shower. That and the work and the lemonade had managed to wash away most of the resentment left from the afternoon's phone call.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks as usual to those following this story, hopefully it's enjoyable thus far!

Disclaimer: Same as always.

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Aunt Emmaline had her mind set on roast chicken for dinner that night, and Kevin, under her instructions, managed not to bungle it up too badly. The skin of the chicken was slightly too salty, but the meat was tender and juicy, and Aunt Emmaline had nothing but praise for him.

"There's an easy and filling meal for you, hmm?" she said as she spooned up some of the rice that he'd cooked to go with the chicken, again with her instructions. "Rosemary, thyme and sage. They add instant zing to any chicken entree. And the good thing is, we'll have enough leftovers to make chicken salad for tomorrow's lunch, and maybe some chicken soup too. That will get us through to this weekend, and then we'll have to buy some more groceries."

"How do you plan on getting those?" Kevin asked.

"Oh, dearie, you'll help me buy the groceries, won't you?" she smiled as though this were the easiest thing in the world. "My car has a full tank of gasoline, and the supermarket is about five minutes away."

Kevin really, really didn't want to, but he figured that the alternative would be eating pizza every night. "I don't know what to buy."

"That's easy enough," Emmaline answered calmly. "You can buy whatever looks good to you, dear. Heaven knows I've more than enough recipes for just about anything. I can make out a list of the basics for you if you'd like."

He grunted, but let her show him how to pick over the meat off the half-eaten chicken. That would be refrigerated, and she would add chopped celery, sliced cucumbers and ranch dressing tomorrow. He wanted to tell her that he was not particularly fond of celery, but then again, he could probably just pick the pieces out later. He was just finished doing the dishes when she gave him an indulgent look and hmmed.

"You've spent most of the day being cooped indoors, haven't you, dear?"

"I mowed the lawn this afternoon," Kevin replied laconically. This new topic didn't seem relevant to anything at all. But Aunt Emmaline shook her head even as she started to wheel herself towards the parlour again.

"You should go outside, go to the park, maybe. It's no longer so hot outside, and there's still two hours or so left of the sunlight. A young boy like you shouldn't spend your days cooped up indoors like a grandpa, you know."

Kevin thought that he was just a little bit too old for parks and the like and surveyed her dubiously after helping her settle into the sofa. "I don't mind being indoors, and what about you, Auntie?"

"Oh, I'll just go on reading this book," she waggled a paperback at him. "Penelope borrowed a few books from the library for me, and this is an adventure. It's the story of a young woman disguising herself as a pirate captain and sailing the seven seas! She meets an impoverished seafaring duke in a port in the Caribbeans and I think that they'll probably make a match of it."

Of that Kevin had no doubt, getting a glimpse of a shirtless, broad-shouldered man with a rapier at his side torridly embracing a strikingly voluptuous young woman with a pirate's plumed hat perched atop her luxuriant black hair. Well, then. If those were his two options...

"I'll go to the park, I guess. I'll be back in a bit."

He locked the front door behind him and took a walk through the neighbourhood. Emmaline settled in happily with her book.

The park was within the neighbourhood, where one of the streets dead-ended. It boasted a track enclosing two fenced tennis courts, a playground, a pool and a baseball diamond amidst a sweeping expanse of shortly trimmed grass scattered here and there with picnic tables and drinking fountains. Despite the hour, or perhaps because of it, all areas aside from the swimming pool were teeming with people. There was an old man with thin silver hair and Bermuda shorts jogging sedately to the music from his walkman around the track. A young mother grinned and caught her toddler in her arms as the latter flew down a slide in a flurry of toffee-coloured curls and Disney Princess sneakers and giggles. In one of the tennis courts, there seemed to be an actual lesson going on as a machine fired neon-yellow balls at a school-aged boy, and a trim, twenty-something instructor stood by the net and critiqued the student's form as he swung a backhand.

Most of the action, however, seemed to be around the baseball diamond. Kevin wandered through the park at a leisurely pace and followed the sounds of childish laughter. There was a game-of-sorts in progress on the diamond, and in the stands, voraciously slurping at an ice cream cone, he spotted a familiar face.

"Hey Mister!" Junior waved with his free hand and beckoned Kevin over. His round, somewhat chocolate-smeared face was a study in exuberant youthful good-humour. "How're you doing?"

"I'm all right," Kevin answered as he sat down next to Junior. "Did you sell a lot of lemonade this afternoon?"

"Yep," Junior grinned over the top of his nearly-gone ice cream. "Frankie and I made seven dollars and fifty cents today. We went through a whole stack of cups. We split it right down the middle, and that's more than three dollars for each of us, which can buy THREE king-sized candy bars at the store, you know. But I'm going to save mine for some baseball cards. I heard that some baseball cards are awfully expensive, but it's a great sport." He crunched into the cone portion of his summertime treat, chewed and swallowed. "That's my sister Angelina going up to bat now!"

Kevin looked down and saw a slim, wiry girl of about ten with braids peeking out underneath a rakishly tilted white baseball cap skipping up to the plate. She gave an almost flirtatious glance at the pitcher, who was about her age and had a faint cleft in his chin and had his own cap pulled low. Angelina kicked the dirt with her cleats and hoisted the bat up to her shoulder, and a tall, older girl, clearly the coach, walked up behind her and adjusted her stance.

"GO GET 'EM, ANGE!" Junior hollered over a mouthful of sugar cone, and the Little League coach glanced up, and Kevin's heart skipped a beat as he found himself staring into a face of perfect beauty. In the rose-gold backlight of sunset, she looked like something from a dream, sweet-lipped and dimpled, the mannish baseball jersey emphasizing a slim figure and endless legs. She'd stuffed most of her hair underneath her hat, but what was visible glowed like candleflame in the dying light of the sun.

Kevin didn't notice Ange miss the first pitch, and didn't hear Junior's continued shouts of encouragement. He didn't notice Junior's cheer of glee or frenzied clapping as she hit the second pitch and sprinted to third base, sending the two previous batters home. His focus remained on the girl coach, her smooth southern drawl, her balletic grace, as she went from player to player, correcting stances, giving encouragement and instruction. When the game was at an end, he hadn't the foggiest what the final score was, or which team won, and just barely remembered to ask Junior who she was.

"Oh, that's Mina," Junior answered, glancing around for any sign of attentive adults before wiping his sticky hands on his shorts. "She's on the high school's softball team and plays pitcher. She just took over the Little League this summer, 'cause Darien, that's who did it before, went to college in Boston and he had to move and stuff. She doesn't have to go to college for another two years, and maybe she won't move when she does. I hope so, 'cause I'm not old enough to be in Little League yet, and I'd rather Mina be the coach than someone new and mean when I'm old enough."

"Now now, Junior, you know full well that they'd never make someone mean coach the Little League," a warm, chiding female voice interrupted them. The girl named Mina had walked over, a mitt on one hand, a bat in the other. Up close, she was even more bewitching, her eyes the blue of cloudless skies, a faint hint of rose in her delicate cheekbones. She surveyed the young boy's face and shook her head with a chuckle. "You'll need to wash off your face and hands before you head home, buddy. I think I see more ice cream than skin." Her gaze shifted to Kevin then, and grew curious. "New to the neighbourhood?"

"I... er, kind of," Kevin wiped suddenly damp hands on his jeans. "Just visiting for the summer. I'm Kevin. Kevin Ellis."

"Mina Atherton," she slipped a slim hand out from the baseball mitt and proffered it. "It's a pleasure."

He shook her hand wordlessly, and in his flustered state, didn't manage to reply before one of the other kids called her away. He watched wordlessly as she turned towards her young charge, giving him a slight wave over her shoulder before jogging off.

"You look funny," Junior pronounced next to him. "You all right there, Mister?"

"Yeah, okay," Kevin answered distractedly. "I'm just fine. I should head on home, though. See you around."

He walked home in a slight daze as the moon and stars came out and the crickets started to chirp. Everything about the house, the street, the magnolias blooming in the yard, looked exactly the same as when he'd left. Kevin unlocked the door quietly and for a moment, almost wondered if he'd just imagined her. In his experience, such beauty was never anything but an illusion.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N and disclaimers: Thanks as always to those following the story, and for the kind reviews! As always, nothing belongs to me. No soap opera characters were harmed in the writing of this chapter.

* * *

By the time the weekend rolled around, after two days of rain and unrelenting mugginess, Kevin was only too glad to go grocery shopping for Great-Aunt Emmaline.

Rainy days had meant staying indoors all day. The house was scrubbed to a gleam, from the kitchen to the bathrooms to every last dust-catcher displayed in her curio cabinet. Out of sheer boredom, he'd watched television with her in the afternoons and perused several of her magazines. With some tutelage on Aunt Emmaline's part, Kevin managed to learn a small percentage of the convoluted and perpetually tragic lives of several characters in a soap opera, all of whom had overly faddish names like Colette and Harper and Veronica and Blaise and Rafael as well as problems that'd be easily prevented with the judicious use of condoms and pre-nuptial agreements. He also learned about new and creative ways of re-using household junk ranging from ripped pantyhose (to dust electronics) to coffee grounds (to fertilize rosebushes) to wadded-up newspapers (to clean windows and deodorize old shoes). All in all, it was only marginally more interesting than, say, watching paint dry.

Across the street, Junior had remained indoors for the duration of the rainy weather, and in the mornings when Miss Penelope visited, she always brought a brightly coloured red umbrella patterned with yellow smiley faces. Kevin did, with no hesitation, follow Aunt Emmaline's advice and take a walk in the park every night, but there was no Little League practice scheduled, possibly due to the rainy, muddy ground.

Saturday, however, dawned warm and sunny, with a robin's-egg-blue sky with only a few white, puffy clouds. Kevin, now an old hand at scrambled eggs and toast, made breakfast with the last of the eggs and let Aunt Emmaline dictate a basic list for him and hand him a few slightly crinkled twenties from a heart-shaped be-ribboned box on the mantel which once upon a time probably held chocolates.

Emmaline owned a gunmetal gray Oldsmobile of indeterminate age with a vanilla-scented air freshener and a pair of bright pink fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. After ascertaining how to get to the supermarket, Kevin pulled out of her driveway at about half past ten and made his careful way down the street.

The supermarket was, as advertised, a mere five minutes or so from her house, and Kevin carefully pulled the car into a parking space not too far from the entrance. The supermarket was located within a strip mall with several other shops, and so perhaps it was fate.

It was just as he was walking past the video and DVD store that the door was pushed open and a slim blonde goddess, humming along with some pop hit, sauntered out. She wore big tawny sunglasses over her eyes, but Kevin would have recognized her anywhere. Just as he'd decided to say hello, she saw him as well, and red lips curved upward in a friendly smile. "Good morning. Kevin, right?"

"Yeah, good morning." Kevin walked over, and she tipped her sunglasses up to the top of her head. Her sunshine hair streamed down, almost to her waist, strands of gold flowing around a butter-yellow t-shirt and denim shorts that revealed legs perfect as Greek columns. He tried not to stare. "How are you?"

"I'm good," she answered, moving out of the way of the door as someone else came out. "Returning a few DVDs we borrowed. It's been so rainy, there's been nothing to do but watch movies at home all day. You?"

"Well, watching movies must be better than cleaning the house and reading old magazines," Kevin found himself saying. "I'm, uh, here to pick up a few groceries for Auntie."

"Ah, that's nice of you," she smiled, and walked with him the few steps towards the entrance of the supermarket. "How are you enjoying Georgia so far?"

He pushed the door open and glanced at her uncertainly, but she seemed content to walk with him, and walked in with a nod of thanks before him. He grabbed a cart. "It's a bit hotter than I'm used to, but... it's fine."

"Oh, it will get hotter, trust me," Mina laughed lightly. "I've lived here since I was six. It's snowed maybe twice in those ten years."

"Huh," Kevin frowned as he unfolded the grocery list. "We get snow every winter in New York. Er, that's where I'm from, by the way." He wished, for a moment, that he was better at talking to girls than making mundane small conversation about the weather. It had never seemed important before, and avoiding her eyes, he glanced down at Aunt Emmaline's list.

Mina glanced at it as well, and steered the cart towards the back. "You'll want to go that way for produce." She helpfully pointed a finger towards stalls full of green vegetables and colourful fruits.

Ah, inspiration! Kevin gave her a brief smile, and pushed the cart slowly in that direction. "I've never actually bought groceries before. I mean, aside from with my mother as a kid." The mention of his mother still ached, but perhaps because he wasn't alone, the pain felt slightly dulled. "So, er, what type of tomatoes should I get? Aunt Emmaline didn't specify."

"Ripe ones," Mina chuckled, and prodded a few plum tomatoes with a fingertip. "Like this," she handed him one and he gave it a tentative, experimental squeeze. "I'd recommend these over hothouse ones, because they taste better. And cherry tomatoes to snack on."

They made their slow, leisurely way through the produce section and onto meats, the bakery, and dairy products. All throughout the process, Mina kept up a steady stream of friendly conversation and advice about checking for expiration dates on milk, why whole wheat was better than white bread, and why he should always open up a carton of eggs to check for broken ones first. She didn't seem to have any problem in walking with him through the store as he picked out all the items on the shopping list and, for the chance to be with her a little bit longer, several things that weren't on the list at all. They walked towards the cash registers, and the conversation shifted towards baseball and school and hobbies. Mina confessed that she was slightly addicted to American Idol, and he had to laugh. He remarked that he'd been exposed to some of the more dramatic plots of Aunt Emmaline's favourite soap opera in the last two days, and her golden-bell laughter rang out, a sound that filled his heart like hope.

He paid for the groceries and they walked in tandem out of the store. Mina reached up to slide her sunglasses back down over her face, and winced. "Ugh, they're snagged in my hair. I should just start remembering not to do that. Can you help me untangle them?"

Kevin swallowed, and reached over towards her head. He could feel his fingers trembling when they came in contact with the warm silk of her hair, and he painstakingly worked the strands away from the nosepieces of the sunglasses. "There you go."

"Thanks," she said with a smile. "I should probably get going. It's about lunchtime, and we're having chicken curry. If I don't get home soon, the kids will gobble it all up."

He wondered how many siblings she had and where she lived, but didn't know how to ask without seeming nosy and a bit of a creep. In New York, people just didn't do such things. Nor did they... "Thanks, by the way, for helping me with the grocery shopping. No one's done that before."

"Charity says that we should always extend a hand in friendship and assistance to others, and she's a wise woman," she quipped, and he wasn't quite sure he'd ever heard that expression before. "I'll see you around, Kevin." With a cheery wave, she jogged off, and he stared for a few moments before making his way towards Aunt Emmaline's car.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N and disclaimers: Hopefully everyone is still enjoying the story, etc. etc. More about Mina and her life in upcoming chapters, and yes, a few other characters will cameo in this fic. As always, if you recognize it, I don't own it.

* * *

It was in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of Kevin's second week at Great-Aunt Emmaline's when a soft knock came on the door. Kevin, in the parlour sitting on the floor, looked up from the copy of To Kill A Mockingbird that he was reading aloud.

He walked through the house and opened the door to reveal a young girl of about twelve or thirteen with gangly legs and small gold hoop earrings swinging against her surprisingly expressive face. "Hello."

"How do you do," she greeted him with a smile and an appraising look. "I'm Louise Harmon, from across the street. My Nana made beignets and told me to run over with some for y'all."

"Oh," Kevin recalled Penelope Harmon's easy conversation about her life in New Orleans as she guided him in the art of scrambling eggs on her first visit, and noticed the plastic-wrap-covered plate in her hands and opened the door wider. "Thanks. Come on in."

"Who is it, dear?" Emmaline called from the parlour. Louise followed Kevin towards the sound of her voice.

"Good afternoon, Miz Emmaline," Louise greeted Emmaline with a wider and more easy smile than she'd greeted Kevin. "I brought y'all some beignets from Nana."

"How lovely of you, Louise," Emmaline pinked in pleasure. "You'll have to sit a spell and have one with us, won't you? Kevin, dearie, get the pitcher of iced tea and a few glasses."

Louise took a seat gracefully in one of the brocade armchairs of the parlour, and thanked Kevin with a graciousness belying her young age when he brought in the iced tea. Emmaline, clearly familiar with all the members of Penelope Harmon's extended family, inquired about her dance lessons and reminisced about a school play during the last school year in which Louise'd had a starring role.

"Louise played the Genie in _Aladdin_," Emmaline told Kevin. "She did a wonderful job, and for such a young girl, she can really sing quite well."

Louise seemed to blush at the praise and sipped at her tea. "Are you really from New York City?" she asked Kevin. "Have you ever been to a Broadway show?"

He had, a few times, with his mother and father. Those were long-gone carefree days, but there was no reason to take it out on a harmless girl. "Yeah," he said at length. "The last one I saw was about a year ago. _West Side Story_."

"It must have been amazing," Louise said wistfully. "I want to be able to perform like that. And the songs are beautiful."

"It was nice, and the girl who played Maria had a good voice," Kevin answered, and took a bite of one of the beignets. "But this is so much better. Your Nana is a really good cook."

Louise giggled. "She made such a huge batch, you know. My little brother's just a bottomless pit. He must've et more than half a dozen by himself before Ma caught him, and it shan't spoil his supper either, I bet you anything." She glanced at Kevin appraisingly again. "Did y'all cry when you saw _West Side Story_? I cried when I watched the movie."

No, he hadn't cried, but... "Remembering it makes me sad," Kevin admitted honestly, though not for the reasons that she might have thought.

She gave him a soft smile, and what might have been an admiring look. "It's okay. Most boys in my school never admit it when they're sad or nothing. I think it's silly. But it's so cool that you saw a real Broadway show!"

"Hey, someday you might get to see one too," Kevin remarked. "Besides, Auntie thinks you're really good at performing and stuff, so maybe you'll be in one when you're older. You never know."

"That would be amazing," Louise said dreamily, before giving him a sidelong glance. "How old are the people there?"

"Er, probably eighteen and up," Kevin said. "A lot of the people who study theatre and such in New York don't make it to Broadway, but then again, some who work hard enough and are really good can get in. You could always try." Really, it wasn't like him to encourage random preteens to pursue impractical dreams. He chalked it up to the heat of the day.

For the next fifteen minutes or so, Louise peppered him with questions about New York, Broadway shows that he'd seen, his opinions of the people who performed, and the like. Kevin answered them to the best of his ability as he washed down three of Miss Penelope's matchless beignets with his iced tea. It was the parlour clock chiming half-past five which reminded Louise of the time.

"Laws, I'd best get going before Ma gets mad," she bounced up from her seat. "I hope y'all enjoy the rest of the beignets. It sure was nice meeting you," she said to Kevin with a wholly feminine smile.

Perhaps the renowned civility of the south was getting to him, and he walked her to the door. "Have a nice day," he said as she stepped outside.

"Y'all do the same!" she tossed over her shoulder as she dashed down the sidewalk. Kevin shut the door, walked back to the parlour, and wheeled Aunt Emmaline to the kitchen, where together, they started dinner.

It was starting to become routine.

~*~

It was a few days after Louise Harmon had dropped by with a plateful of beignets from Miss Penelope that Kevin, carrying a batch of walnut double chocolate brownies on the same plate, made his way across the street in the sultry, magnolia-scented evening. There were no cars in the driveway, but the lights inside were on, and he rang the doorbell.

He heard the muffled sound of quick footsteps before the door opened, and of all people, he wasn't expecting to see HER there, and suddenly he felt a bit awkward. "Er, hello, Mina."

Dimples winked in her cheeks when she smiled. "Hey, Kevin. What brings you over here tonight? Oooh, are those brownies?"

"Yeah," Holding the plate out towards her, he was mortally afraid that he might be blushing. "Aunt Emmaline baked them today. The plate is Miss Penelope's, when Louise brought over beignets a few days ago. She says thanks, by the way. Aunt Emmaline, that is. Umm, what are you doing here?"

"Babysitting at the moment," she said breezily. "Their folks are out celebrating their anniversary, and Penelope and her husband are out at Bingo Night at the Community Centre. Louise is at her friend Susannah's house for a sleepover, and so, it's just me, Junior and Angelina. Come on in and sit a while if you'd like."

Kevin hesitated for a moment before toeing off his shoes at the door and following her through the house towards the den, where sounds of battle and childish laughter could be heard from a-ways away. Junior looked up from his spot on the couch and grinned. "Hey, Mister! How're you doing?"

"Good," Kevin replied. "How about you?"

"Ange is up one run on the Wii," the boy pouted, then noticed the plate that Mina was holding. "BROWNIES!!" With what was best described as a war whoop, he bounced up from the couch as though shot from a catapult. "YAAAAAY!! WHOOOOOOOOO!!!"

The baseball game on the Wii took a quick pause as both kids dove for the brownies, and Mina hastened to the kitchen to grab napkins. Junior chomped down on his brownie and ate almost the whole thing in a single bite. Angelina, more canny on matters of social decorum around strange gentlemen, ate hers at a slightly more sedate pace and carefully wiped her mouth with a napkin when Mina returned.

"Aren't you going to have one yourself?" Mina asked Kevin as she took one for herself. "Emmaline's famous for her brownies."

He took one as well, and tried to eat it gracefully without spilling walnut pieces onto his lap or getting chocolate all over his teeth. Mina ate hers slowly as though savouring every bite, and his fingers itched to wipe away a stray crumb from the corner of her mouth and feel if her skin was really as silky as it looked. He resisted the impulse, but watched her out of the corner of his eye until Angelina, clearly as outgoing as her other siblings, asked him if he liked baseball. When he answered in the affirmative, she asked him if he knew how to play, and seemed crestfallen for a moment when he said no. Then she asked him if he did any other sports, and gave him a look full of awe when he made a brief mention of learning karate.

"Ooh, that's like Dragonball Z stuff, right?" Junior piped up around a mouthful of brownie. Kevin wasn't familiar with the show, and the question was rather indistinct. Ange elbowed her brother.

"No, doofus, it's like Jackie Chan stuff."

Junior pouted and crossed his arms. "Mama says I can't watch the Rush Hour movie because there's too much cussing and stuff in it. But Mama isn't here right now." He slid a hopeful look at Mina, who simply laughed and shook her head.

"I'm not about to get in trouble with your mother, kid. Why don't you go back to playing your baseball game for now? And Ange, don't call your brother names."

Ange sighed in the put-upon way particular to older sisters and picked up the controller. Junior glanced at Kevin as he finished his second brownie. "Do you know how to play baseball on the Wii?"

That he did, and when he said so, the boy's face broke out in a grin. "Ooh, we could take turns, Mister! You can be on my team. Mina can be on Ange's. Boys against girls. Maybe we could beat them."

Kevin glanced uncertainly at Mina, who was licking chocolate crumbs from her lips, and nearly forgot the topic of the conversation.

Thankfully, she was oblivious to his scrutiny and smiled easily. "Sure, why not?" Taking the controller from Ange, she raised her chin in friendly competition. "You're on."

Time flew by amidst sounds of Ange's giggles and Junior's whoops and the sounds of the video game. In the dim light of the den, Mina's hair shone like Danae's golden cloud. By the time the game finally drew to a close, it was full dark outside and Junior was curled up on the couch fast asleep and Ange was fighting back yawns. Mina lifted the little boy up easily in her arms and Kevin, feeling as though he should help, cleaned up the used napkins and scattered chocolate and walnut crumbs.

"The kitchen's that way, and there's a trash can by the counter," Mina gestured with her free hand as she carried Junior out of the den. It was stated with the casual warmth one directed at a friend rather than a guest, and Kevin felt heartened by it. "Let me put them to bed real quick, I'll be right back."

She trooped up the stairs with both kids in tow, and Kevin busied himself examining the collection of spelling tests, drawings and photographs affixed to the refrigerator with numerous magnets. There was a rather artistic rendering of Spongebob Squarepants by Junior with crayons on construction paper at eye-level, his initials scrawled in the corner. There were wallet-sized school photos of all three kids, as well as one of Mina and Ange, both in baseball jerseys, clearly taken in the park. Next to that, looking a bit out of place, was a picture of two men in camouflage gear and sunglasses in a barren-looking landscape.

"Whew, they're down," Mina's voice sounded by the entrance of the kitchen, and Kevin turned away from the refrigerator to look at her, all of the sudden acutely aware that they were for all intents and purposes alone together in private.

"I was looking at that picture of you and Ange on the refrigerator," he ventured, unable to come up with a wittier conversation topic at such short notice. "It's nice."

"Ah, yes," Mina chuckled affectionately and leaned against the wall indolently. "That was taken after the last game we had. She's really quite good. She has a little crush on Shane, our pitcher, and keeps using upcoming games as excuses to make him practice more with her. But hey, he goes for it and it works."

Kevin rather thought that Ange had the right idea, but wasn't quite sure how to implement anything similar to spend more time with her. Nevertheless, some conversation was better than nothing. "How often do you guys practice?"

"A few times a week," she answered. "Officially three, though sometimes more if we feel like it. We're more flexible about it here than in the Junior and Senior leagues, since these are younger kids. It's more about fostering teamwork and having fun than serious, hardcore athletics at this point, you know? Though, to be fair, I work them hard enough and they don't slack off. We have a very important game next Friday, you see. The mayor and several other super-special people will be in attendance." Running a hand carelessly through her hair, Mina grinned at Kevin. "You should come watch. Most of the ladies of the neighbourhood will be donating goodies for concessions. Ange is looking forward to smoking the other team, and Junior's looking forward to stuffing his cute little face."

Gazing into her face and the welcoming smile across her lips, shining in her cornflower blue eyes, Kevin mentally uttered a prayer of thanks that all the adults in the Harmon family happened to be out that night and required the services of a babysitter so that he'd be able to talk to her again. "I'll be there," he promised. "What time does it start?"


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Just a brief interlude chapter, I suppose. No shippy stuff, mostly focused on character development. More Mina/Kevin to come though, no worries!

Disclaimer: Same as always.

* * *

Friday afternoon before the Little League game found Kevin in the house alone while Emmaline, under the care of Miss Penelope, was at the hospital for her checkup. After mowing the lawn again and buying another cup of lemonade from Junior and his friend Frankie, Kevin went indoors to get out of the heat.

In Great-Aunt Emmaline's usually tidy parlour, everything had its place, from the porcelain dolls on the hearth to the crocheted lace antimacassars and doilies on the sofas and end tables to the magazines on the shelves and coffee table. Today, however, at the lady's escritoire was a pile of open photo albums.

Kevin walked over, intent on cleaning it up and putting it away, and his eyes fell on the top picture of the first album, a glossy professional photographer product painstakingly labelled in Emmaline's delicate, old-fashioned script:

"Laurie and John's Wedding, the 5th of June 1988."

Kevin stilled, and touched the clear plastic covering the photograph lightly. His mother looked young and radiant, her blonde hair curling down to her shoulders in ringlets, her face frozen in hope and joy underneath a tulle veil. Next to her, exultant and smiling, was his father in his tuxedo.

There'd been a picture of his parents' wedding at his home too, but his father had put it away after his mother's death.

Gingerly, as though afraid of what might happen next, Kevin turned the page of the album, and with each successive page, each successive moment in time caught on film, the ache in his heart deepened.

A graduation picture, his mother about his own age now, holding her diploma in one hand, a cap over her beaming face. A photograph of his mother, still young and carefree, glowing with pregnancy, holding Great-Aunt Emmaline's hand as they sat on the porch of the house. A picture of himself as a child, holding the ship in a bottle from the guest room aloft over his head like a prize. Each was labelled with the date the picture was taken, spanning more than two decades.

Kevin didn't have any plan of calling his father again, really. He didn't intend to. But somehow, he was in the kitchen and dialing the number of the office before he quite knew what he was doing.

It was once again the secretary Tracey who answered, and once again, there was a terrible, well-meaning sympathy in her tone before she put him on hold. Once again, Kevin listened to the soft, smooth tones of some female singer crooning about forever love and clenched his hands as he waited for his father to pick up.

"Kevin," John Ellis' voice was hoarse from too many cigarettes, rusty as though he'd not used it more than was absolutely strictly necessary within the last forty-eight hours. "How... how're you?"

"Where are all Mom's pictures?" Kevin found himself asking without so much as a greeting, and there was dead silence on the line.

He would almost have preferred the horrific complacent music to come back on than that.

"I... is something wrong?" John didn't answer the question, and his breathing was audibly shaky over the telephone connection. "This is rather random."

The voice was even, almost robotic, and the shaky breathing belied it. Kevin's fist flashed out and hit the wall with a bang. A kitten calendar crashed down to the floor. Draw your fist back slightly on an inhale, punch on the exhale for more power, the sensei says.

"I'm still alive, Dad. She's dead, and I'm still alive, and all you do these days is pretend that it all never happened. Are you trying to undo the last twenty years of your life so that you don't have to think about her every day? Did you get rid of all her pictures so that you could forget her?"

"Kevin..." John's voice was strained, "I loved her. I loved her more than anything. I just..."

"You can get rid of her pictures, maybe. Are you glad that I'm gone for the summer so you don't have to deal with me, since I'm all you have left of her?" Tears stung at his eyes, shocking him. "God, I don't even know why I called you."

He slapped the receiver back down and all but ran out of the kitchen, up the stairs to his room. Next to the fallen calendar, the phone rang again, and again, and again. It didn't fall silent for more than half an hour.

~*~

It was trite and unmanly to the extreme to shed tears over a minor altercation with a parent which tore open festering wounds that he HAD been pretty good at ignoring, but he was past thinking of image. The house was empty but for him and there would be no one to ask questions. He eventually fell into a fitful sleep and didn't wake until sundown. He didn't know that Miss Penelope had peeked in on him at Emmaline's request, smoothing a blanket over his back and running a competent, gentle hand over his hair.

When he opened his eyes and heard the parlour clock chiming eight o'clock, he cursed softly. Stripping off his wrinkled shirt, he scrubbed his hands over his gritty eyes and dug through the closet for a clean one as he tried to restore some order to his hair. He hoped that his nose wasn't red.

Emmaline was in the parlour knitting when he got downstairs, and she gave him a slightly tentative smile. "How are you feeling, dearie?"

He stared down at the floor, ashamed that he had, for a few hours, forgotten all about her. "I'm okay. Did you eat yet?"

"Oh, yes. Penelope and I decided to splurge a bit after the doctor's visit, and we had cheeseburgers and Coca Cola at McDonald's just as though we were young again." She smiled and set her knitting down in her lap. "She had to go, of course. There's a game in the park for the Little League tonight, and her granddaughter is playing. I asked her to bring a plate of brownies from me for the concessions."

"Yeah, I know there's a game," Kevin said. "It... when I returned their plate they told me." Or their babysitter did, but he didn't really want to get into that.

"Penelope says that her grandkids are fond of you," Emmaline's smile was gentle and vague. "Maybe you should go watch."

He had planned to, and he had planned to arrive early to wish Angelina good luck and get a chance to talk with Mina before she got busy. It seemed poor form to show up late, though. "Do you think I should?"

"Oh, of course, dear. The games are a great deal of fun to watch, you know. I'd go myself if I could. But if you go and watch it, you could tell me all about it when you get home."

Kevin fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "Will you be all right here if I go, Auntie?"

"Certainly," Emmaline laughed. "Be off with you. Little League only plays six innings a game, so if you dawdle much longer, you'll miss all the fun." She picked up her knitting again. "I'm sure that Junior will have saved you a seat."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Here's the next chapter, and as always, thanks to those keeping up with the fic! Happy holidays all!

Disclaimer: Same as always.

* * *

Junior had, in fact, done just that. He wore a miniature baseball jersey and bright red cap in support of his sister's team and waved Kevin over with a hand that held an enormous soft pretzel liberally coated with cinnamon sugar. Trying his best not to distract or inconvenience anyone already in the stands, Kevin carefully took his seat next to the boy. It was nearly the end of the first inning.

"The Arrows, that's our team, are up one run," Junior said gleefully between bites of pretzel. "The other team wears green and they're called the Shooting Stars. They have a good pitcher, I guess, but I don't think he's as good as Shane is. Ange is up to bat next and I bet she's nervous but I think she'll be okay. The bases are loaded for us so I hope she can do a Grand Slam because that would just be AWESOME!"

Kevin agreed that it would be awesome and consented to hold Junior's plate so he could stand up and cheer for his sister as Angelina made her way out of the dugout. The sheer amount of food on the plate made him raise an eyebrow, but from the boy's energetic jumping and shouting, he was fairly sure that Junior's activity level would end up balancing out his appetite in the end.

He spotted Mina off in the sidelines, hands on hips, next to a fellow who looked to be about his own age, wearing the green and gray of the other team. The other coach was tall and broad-shouldered, with brown hair and a tanned complexion visible beneath his fielder's cap. Angelina made her way towards the plate, scuffed her cleats as was her habit, and lifted the bat to her shoulders. Now, there was no coquettry in her eyes as she stared down the rival pitcher.

She missed the first pitch, and the second, and next to him, Junior was bouncing up and down with even more vim than before, shouting encouragement at the top of his lungs. She hit the third pitch with a solid swing, and the home team's supporters cheered loudly as she bulleted her way to third base, sending her three teammates home.

"WHOOOOOO!!" Junior's voice could be heard above everyone else's. Down by the diamond, Mina's face was radiant, and her counterpart's held respectful admiration. Kevin wondered who he was, but Junior was gone, making his way towards the concession stands again before he could ask.

The boy came back with two plates this time, and handed one to Kevin with the ingenuous sweetness of a child. "Here, this is for you, Mister. I got you some of Nana's beignets and peanut butter cookies, and one of Lita's homemade cinnamon pretzels, and one of Miz Emmaline's brownies, and one of Miz Rachel-Anne's funnel cakes, and some of Mrs. O'Connor's caramel corn, and a hot dog with everything on it. Oh, and a straw. I couldn't carry my plate and yours and another Cola, but you can share mine if you'd like."

It was the nicest thing that anyone had done for him all day, and Kevin patted the boy's shoulder. "Thanks, Junior. I'll get the snacks next round, hmm?"

"Sure thing," Junior grinned and held out his half-full glass so that Kevin could stick his straw in it. "My favourites are the beignets and the brownies and the pretzels here. Lita makes really good pretzels. If Nick hadn't already I'd ask her to be my girlfriend when I got old enough."

"Who's that?" Kevin asked.

"Nick? Oh, he's the Stars' coach. He plays left fielder for his high school, and Lita's the pitcher on the softball team there and Mina's friends with her when they're not playing against each other and stuff. Lita doesn't coach though, 'cause she's taking classes outside of school in the culerary arts or something and doesn't have time. Mama says that's for people who like to cook. I think it sounds cool."

"Oh," Kevin relaxed slightly at this revelation as he watched Nick and Mina converse cordially as their respective teams prepared to take the field again. She happened at that moment to glance up into the stands, and saw him. A smile curved across her lips as she waved, and he waved back, trying to smile back.

He slowly worked his way through the plate of goodies, watched the game progress, and fetched Junior another plate after the boy had plowed through his. When Angelina came up to bat again, he noticed her whole family cheering for her, and wondered what that would be like.

It would be best to put issues like that out of his mind, though. The game was a time for fun and celebration, not for him to sulk, and he was sure that Mina, with her sunshine hair and sweet disposition, wasn't particularly fond of brooding poker-faces. Still, it stung even as he clapped with the rest of them as Ange hit the game-winning home run in the last inning. Next to him, yawning hugely but still loud and enthusiastic, Junior polished off the rest of his food.

"I need to go and tell Ange congratulations and stuff, and then my mama's probably gonna make me go home and go to bed and stuff," the boy turned to talk to Kevin. "Hey, you look sad, Mister. Did you want the other team to win because they had a boy coach? Girls are icky sometimes, even though Mina's not."

Kevin almost let out a hoot of hysterical laughter at that. "Oh, no. I'm just thinking about something. I know Mina's not icky." He handed Junior one of his spare napkins and grabbed their shared cup and both empty plates. "I'll go throw these away while you talk to your sister, hmm?"

He made his way down towards the trash can, and then turned when another thought occurred to him. By the time he was done carrying it out, the Harmons, Junior and a triumphant Angelina in tow, were leaving the park.

He found Mina by the dug-out, efficiently putting aluminum bats away in a bag. She looked up when she heard him approach, and in the twilight, the smile on her face seemed even more enchanting. He held out the plate of food and the glass of Coca Cola to her and shrugged diffidently.

"Junior highly recommended these things as the best of the best. I thought you probably didn't get to eat any during the game."

"You're sweet," she said, and he wasn't sure that he'd ever had those words directed at him by anyone before, particularly not in those soft, sincere tones. "Did you have fun?"

"It was a good game," he answered as she took a seat in the first row of the bleachers. "Congratulations, by the way."

"Thanks," Mina sampled some of everything and watched him as he took a seat next to her. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, as she finished her food and he watched the rest of the spectators leave the park, in groups of laughing families. He felt lower than scum for envying them.

He didn't notice Mina watching him until she cleared her throat. "Er... yes?"

"Want to talk about it?" she asked gently. It mortified him to know that she noticed something amiss, that she remarked upon it before he could think of some type of excuse or pretend that nothing was the matter.

"I'm not sure where to start," he murmured.

"You don't have to tell me, of course," Mina told him softly, and laid a palm cool from the cup of Cola over his own hand. "You don't know me that well, but if you talk about it, you might feel better even if it's a problem that I personally can't solve."

Underneath her fingertips, his knuckles were still sore from coming in hard, sudden contact with the wall earlier that day. Her touch was cool and soothing, and she didn't draw away even when he didn't say anything.

For a moment, or perhaps an eternity as the crescent moon rose in the soft black sky, he surveyed her face, the perfect curves and angles of it, the sea-blue eyes gazing calmly and trustingly into his own. He thought he saw a hint of something akin to recognition in them, a shadow of kindred sorrow, and almost involuntarily, the whole story came pouring out.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Yeah, yeah, this is what everyone's been waiting for. First kiss ahoy! This might also be the last chapter out before the New Year, because it's That Time Of The Year and I'm swamped and have a ton of stuff to do before going out of town and being internetless for a week and a half. So, hopefully everyone likes!

Disclaimer: Insert witty disclaimer here!

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There was no sound but his own slightly unsteady breathing and the musical chirping of crickets in the background when he'd finished. All around them, he could see fireflies winking like tiny beacons of hope. All throughout, Mina had kept her hand over his, and he felt drained. It wasn't something that he was wont to do, and he wasn't sure why he told her-- a beautiful girl he barely knew, who'd certainly not be impressed by something so un-macho-- when he'd never even thought to talk it over with Aunt Emmaline.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me." The words came out of his mouth slightly harsher than he'd intended, breaking the near-silence.

She laughed wryly at that and shook her head. "I always hated when people did that." She sighed though, and met his gaze. "There's nothing that can be done to make it better, I know. But you'll always have the memories, and there are people around you who are there for you." The hand that lay over his pressed down in a squeeze. "Not everyone may know what you're going through, but you might be surprised how many might."

"What do you mean?" He frowned at her, somewhat surprised at this new revelation.

She smiled sadly and somewhat enigmatically. "That's a story for another day. For now... do you feel any better having told someone?"

He did, much to his surprise, and he could only nod. "I guess I was kind of an asshole to my dad this afternoon."

"Perhaps, but you could always apologize," she said evenly. She drained the last of her Cola and stood. "We should get going before our people wonder where we are."

"I feel selfish for keeping you here when you should be at home celebrating your win," Kevin murmured as he threw away her plate and picked up her bag of bats. "Where does this go?"

"Oh, I've a locker in the pool dressing room. They rent it to me for the season free of charge since I'm coaching the Little League." Together, they made it to the locker rooms, and she led him inside the women's and flipped on the lights. Reaching one of the bigger ones in the back, she fiddled with a combination lock before pulling it open. As he watched, spellbound, she took off her cap and shook out her long, glorious hair. Hanging the cap on a hook in the locker, she stepped back. "Here you go. Thanks."

"You're welcome," he answered, following her back out after depositing the bats in the locker. "Here, I'll walk you home. It's really late... if I'd taken the car, that'd probably be better."

"I'll take you up on that, and I live close," Mina told him with a smile.

They made their way out of the park at a leisurely pace, and it was charmingly old-fashioned the way that she rested her hand in the crook of his elbow as they walked. He shortened his stride to match hers and tried not to tremble whenever her hair blew against his bare arm.

Before he knew it, they were on his street, and it was only when he smelled the fragrance of magnolias carrying on the breeze that he realised he was only a few steps away from Aunt Emmaline's house. "Hey, I meant to walk you home," he told her.

"You did," she answered as they paused on the end of Aunt Emmaline's driveway. She pointed across the street. "I live right there."

He raised an eyebrow. "Miss Penelope, Junior and them live there though. You were there babysitting."

"Yeah," she nodded slowly. "I babysit the kids now and again when their folks are out, but I've also lived there since I was six." She took a deep breath, exhaled in what sounded like a sigh. "Again, a story for another night. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he answered before reaching for her hands. "Mina."

"Hmm?"

"Will you tell me your story sometime?"

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him questioningly, but didn't withdraw her hands. "Any particular reason?"

"Because..." He kept his eyes focused on hers, his hands steady around hers. "I want to know you. Really know you, that is." He cast up a quick, mental prayer. "Is that okay?"

Her eyes, usually so tranquil, were suddenly steely, almost piercing, as they gazed up into his gray ones as though gauging his intentions. For a few moments, they simply stood there, and all the words that couldn't be easily spoken aloud were communicated silently. Gradually, her fingers relaxed in his, and her smile bloomed again over her face.

"That's fine." Giving him a quick tug, she walked towards her house, and they made their way to the door. Reaching over, she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug that smelled of freshly mowed grass and popcorn and flowers, and he held her close, reveling in her warmth. It had been more than a little while since he'd hugged anyone, and it wasn't nearly as awkward as it should have been.

She pulled out her keys and inserted one into the lock. As she turned the doorknob, she leaned up, and it was just then that he turned his head, and the friendly buss that she would have pressed to his cheek landed on his lips instead.

He couldn't be blamed completely for pulling her close and sinking in and kissing her for real. She made a small noise of surprise against his mouth, but he felt her cool fingers against the nape of his neck, and she didn't pull away.

When they parted for air, her eyes were wide, and his heartbeat had accelerated. A rosy blush, visible even in the moonlight, stained her cheeks. "I... I should go inside," she murmured.

He let her and stepped back off the porch, but called for her before she shut the door. "Mina."

"Yeah?"

"You'll still tell me your story sometime, right?"

Slowly, she smiled at that, and nodded. He felt himself smiling back. "Sweet dreams, then."

The door shut gently behind her back, and he made his slightly dazed way across the street. Great-Aunt Emmaline was lying in her sofa-bed, apparently asleep, when he went inside. With a smile that he wasn't completely successful at controlling, he gently extricated her duke-and-female-pirate romance novel from her hands and set it down on the end table before pulling a blanket over her.

Across the street, visible through the honeysuckle trellis and magnolia branches, there was still a light on through a window. Mina's room. Kevin sat at his own window and watched for a while, until the light was turned off and she went to bed.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Hope everyone had a nice holiday season! I am back from vacation and come bearing new chapter! Hopefully those who have been following this fic will enjoy the latest chapter. Next chapter will be up with less of a wait time, I promise! Thanks to those who left reviews, it's greatly appreciated! As always, comments are loved, so let me know what you think of the fic!

Disclaimer: As usual.

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By all rights, Kevin should not have been awake at the ridiculously early hour of half past seven on Saturday morning, particularly not after the fact that he'd lain awake most of the night before. And yet, here he was, awake and up and in an unsinkable mood. He could almost swear that there was a lingering taste of strawberry lip gloss and Coca Cola from kissing Mina last night still on his mouth.

When he came downstairs, Aunt Emmaline was just stirring, and this morning, instead of hanging back unless she needed him, he entered the parlour and pulled open the curtains to let in the sunlight before helping her into a sitting position. "Hey, Auntie. How are you this morning?"

"I'm wonderful," she smiled affectionately at him. "You seem to have slept well, dear. How was the game last night?"

"The game?" The game seemed secondary now in the wake of what happened after, and for a moment, he had to think about it. "Oh yeah, it was good. Ange Harmon hit the winning run. Junior demolished about half his body weight's worth of junk food. He brought me a plate and let me share his soda, which was nice of him."

Emmaline nodded even as she smoothed over her wispy white hair with one hand and rested the other on Kevin's in an affectionate gesture which mirrored Mina's the night before. "I'm so glad that you're happy-- starting to be happy, dear. It would have been selfish of me to have you come help if you got nothing out of it."

Kevin, normally undemonstrative and aloof, bent down and kissed her papery cheek. "I've no regrets at all for coming here for the summer."

She pinked and beamed up at him, and Kevin suddenly remembered her hospital appointment of yesterday. "Oh, did the doctor say how you were doing and such?"

"Right as rain, dearie," she answered, smoothing over her house dress. "He prescribed some more vitamins, and says that whenever I feel like I'm able to, I should start spending some more time outdoors, in the sunlight. It helps the vitamin D work, you know. For stronger bones. Maybe today I'll take him up on that. I've always liked to sit on the porch with the flowers."

"I'll get you some breakfast, and then we can go outside if you want," Kevin promised, and made a mental note to add reading up on Osteoporosis and hip fractures to the other things that he wanted to get done today. He was just about at the entrance of the kitchen when Emmaline's voice halted him.

"Did you end up getting home rather late, dear? I tried to stay awake, but I don't think I heard you coming in."

Kevin felt heat rising to his face and kept his head turned away. "Oh, yeah. I ended up walking someone home. Er, Mina Atherton. I guess she lives with Miss Penelope and them."

He could practically hear the smile in Emmaline's voice. "You were walking out with Mina Atherton?Yes, she's lived across the street for about ten years now. Willie and Charity adopted her when she was about six. She's such a sweet girl. Have you befriended her?"

He made a noise which could be taken for agreement and buried his hot face in the cool air of the refrigerator.

After breakfast, Kevin carefully wheeled Aunt Emmaline to her car and helped her into the passenger seat, and backed out of the driveway. Under her careful directions, he drove the Oldsmobile to the local greenhouse about ten minutes away. Pulling into a parking spot, he helped her onto a handicapped-accessible cart and together, they made their way inside.

Emmaline gave a smooth, slow-paced commentary on the various types of flowers they passed and the best ways to make them bloom, and Kevin stored as much of the information as possible in his head as he loaded the cart with flats of annuals and supplies of all sorts.

Their cart was almost full when Emmaline paused by a stand of flower seeds. Kevin stopped with her, and watched as she slowly spun the display rack and flowers of all shapes and colours revolved before their eyes. She stopped and reached up to one spot, where only a lone pack of seeds of the particular variety was left.

"Forget-me-nots," she said softly. "Your mother loved them."

Perhaps it was, like so many other things in life, where the first time was the hardest. Kevin found himself nodding rather than withdrawing into himself at the mention of his mother's name, of remembering her. "Let's buy them. Maybe we can see if they have any more in the back."

The two of them made their way towards the checkout counter, which was manned by a tall, buxom girl in a green apron and auburn curls pulled back in a ponytail. Forthright green eyes met Kevin's as she started scanning their items. "Good morning," she greeted them. "Did y'all find everything you were looking for today?"

"We were wondering if you had any more of these in the back," Kevin held out the single packet of forget-me-nots seeds and watched with not a little admiration as she hefted a fifty-pound bag of topsoil as though it were a pillow.

"Ah, those are the last of it, I'm sorry," the girl replied. "Forget-me-nots are really supposed to be planted in early to mid-Spring. They don't always bloom if you get them in this late in the year."

It seemed very important, somehow, to have these bloom. "Do you have any tips, then? ... Lita, is it?" He glanced at the nametag pinned on her chest and remembered something suddenly. "Wait a moment. Did you happen to make cinnamon pretzels for a Little League game that took place yesterday?"

The green eyes widened, then crinkled as she laughed. She did not have a light, airy giggle like most girls, but a full, throaty laugh. "Guilty. I don't think I saw you at the game, and I usually notice cute guys."

"Great pretzels," Kevin mumbled, feeling a bit embarrassed by her "cute guys" comment. "I was sitting with a little kid who told me that you pitched for your high school team and didn't coach Little League like your boyfriend did because you were too busy studying culinary arts. He seems to have the 411 on everyone within a twenty-mile radius, not to mention the appetite of a starving trucker."

Lita laughed again and slung a bag of mulch back into his cart with a smooth movement of her well-toned arms. "Something like that. Your source is well-informed. You don't sound like you're from around here."

"I'm from New York," Kevin answered as she scanned the last of the items. "Visiting for the summer." He recalled something else that Junior had told him, and nodded at the elderly woman watching their exchange curiously. "Auntie here lives across the street from your friend Mina."

"I see," Lita's mouth curved up in a knowing sort of smile as she bagged the smaller gardening tools. "Well, for your forget-me-nots, you should keep them very well watered, and in partial shade. Let them re-seed after they bloom, if they bloom, and they'll grow again next year. They're a bit invasive, so it's best to use them as ground cover along a wall rather than try to contain them in a bed of finite size." She handed the seed packet back to him. "No charge on them."

"Are you sure?"

"They're the last of the batch, and may not bloom at all, and we're welcoming here in the South," she answered matter-of-factly. "Aside from those, your total's $63.89. I'll help you take it out to your car."

She flagged down another cashier to take her post and followed Kevin and Emmaline out to the parking lot. When they arrived at Emmaline's car, Lita told Kevin to help his aunt into the seat and pop open the trunk, and efficiently bundled everything away before he could do much more than settle Emmaline in. By the time he had settled into the driver's seat, she was already striding back into the greenhouse, though she gave them a friendly wave at the door before stepping inside.

When they returned home, Emmaline made a picnic-style lunch and took it to the porch, and together, she and Kevin ate roast beef sandwiches and cole slaw and washed it down with tall glasses of iced tea. After lunch, with her instructions, he pulled up the weeds crowding along the walls and tilled the soil.

At an unhurried pace, Kevin spent the whole afternoon working on the garden, sowing the seeds for the forget-me-nots, planting down beds of annuals, trimming hedges and mulching the soil. Following Lita's suggestions, he picked an area shaded by the magnolia trees to plant the forget-me-nots and watered it thoroughly.

He was just about finished and rinsing off his grimy hands with the garden hose when Mina emerged from the front door of the house across the street. He called out for her without planning to, and then vainly wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans.

"Hey, Kevin," she greeted him as she crossed the street. Long bare legs tanned pale golden brown paused at the mailboxes at the edge of his yard. As she took her mail, she smiled, and there was something diffident in her gaze. "How are you today?"

"Good," he answered, reaching her side. "I'm kind of dirty right now though... been gardening."

"I see that," she grinned. "It's real nice of you to do that for Miss Emmaline. She's always been so fond of her flowers."

That reminded him that there were so many things about her that he still didn't know. "What are you doing this evening?"

"Little League practice after supper, but that'll be done by half-past nine," she answered, giving him a sidelong look. "Yourself?"

"I... I still wanted to talk to you. That is, if you don't mind." His request was quietly made, not quite polished, and he wished that he was more certain around girls.

She tucked the mail under her arm and shut the mailbox, and gazed back up into his face. Her smile was still there, and her eyes were soft and warm. "Wait for me after the practice, and we'll talk after I make sure that the kids get home."

He reached for her hand, and she didn't seem to mind that his fingers were still slightly muddy. "I'll walk them home with you, and we can talk afterwards."

Her smile grew at that, and she nodded. "Okay. I'll see you tonight."

He watched her dash back across the street before going back inside. Aunt Emmaline, whom he'd wheeled back in about an hour earlier, was humming along with the golden oldies radio station as she washed greens for a salad. She glanced over and smiled when he came in. "Are you done, Kevin?"

He washed his hands in the bathroom before entering the kitchen, and took down a bottle of vinaigrette from a high shelf in the pantry for her. "Not quite. But I think I made a good start."

"Yes, indeed," Emmaline said quietly. "You'll get there by-and-by."


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Sorry about delay in updating! I've been busy. But... here, at last, Mina's backstory. Hope everyone likes! Feedback is, as always, very welcome.

Disclaimer: Same as always.

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Kevin was in the stands by the baseball diamond by nine o'clock. It was less crowded today, as there wasn't a game on the schedule and several of the kids were out doing other things on a Saturday night. Nevertheless, the more dedicated members of the team, Angelina and Shane among them, were still present and practicing under Mina's patient tutelage.

It was almost an unspoken agreement now that Kevin would take his seat next to Junior in the stands, and listen as the boy rattled on an account of his day. Today, Junior was full of grievances. Louise had found a used copy of the Phantom of the Opera DVD at the video store and had hogged the television all afternoon to watch it. He, Junior, thought that the movie was boring and wished that there'd been more fighting and less singing, and really, how were people supposed to fight and sing at the same time anyway? Frankie had been unable to come over and play because he'd not cleaned his room all week and was therefore grounded by his mother, and Danny Elmer had swaggeringly proceeded to take advantage by monopolizing the afternoon lemonade trade with his cheap coloured water. On top of it all, last night during the baseball game, he, William Harmon, Junior, had gotten a big huge whopper of a mosquito bite on his leg and it itched like crazy.

Kevin listened to this litany of ills, and turned the conversation towards the baseball cards that Junior wanted to buy with his share of the lemonade stand money, and made a mental note.

"All right, everyone," Mina called out as the practice drew to a close. "Good job today. Jerry, remember what I told you about holding the bat. Shane, you're getting better with your curveball." She watched as several of the kids scampered off towards their parents in the stands, and smiled when she saw Junior and Kevin sitting in the top row, heads together and apparently deep in conversation. Making her way up the bleachers, she paused two rows below them and grinned. "Mind if I join in?"

"Mina," Junior looked up with a very put-upon expression on his round little face, "Do you think Lou's done watching that movie yet? 'Cause all I heard all day was the lady singing 'ahhh-ahh-ahhhhhh-ah-ahh-ah'."

"I think it's a safe bet that she's done by now, yes," Mina kept a straight face, but her eyes danced with merriment beneath the brim of her baseball cap. "Why don't we go home and see? Ange, you ready to go?"

Ange looked up from where she was conversing earnestly with Shane, just the tiniest hint of reluctance in her eyes. "I guess so."

"All right, then," Mina slanted a look at Kevin. "I need to put my stuff away first. Do you guys want to come with, or wait for me here?"

Both Junior and Angelina aimed beatific, hopeful smiles at Mina. "If we come with do you think we can get snow cones from the stand by the lockers? They close at ten."

Mina set the bats down and seemed to ponder this over. "Hmmm..."

"PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?!"

"Okay, okay," she relented with a laugh. "But only a small one each, okay? I'm not getting in trouble for you two going home with purple stains all down your shirts again." She reached over to pick up her bag of bats only to see that Kevin had picked it up already. "Oh, Kevin, you didn't have to."

"I know," he answered. "I don't mind."

She blushed, perhaps thinking of last night when he'd done the same thing, and what had eventually happened, and reached over to take Junior's hand. "All right then, everyone. Off we go."

After stopping at the locker rooms and the snow cone stand, the four of them made their leisurely way out of the park, past the playgrounds and the parking lot where a sullen-looking group of teenaged punk-rock types loafed and talked amongst themselves over cheap cigarettes. They made the short walk down to the Harmon household in companionable silence, and if the children noticed anything new between their surrogate sister and the young man who was living across the street for the summer, they didn't say anything.

Kevin didn't know if they would be going into Miss Penelope's home or not, but Mina took the guesswork of it out for him. Seeing the kids to the driveway, she watched them scamper inside and shut the door behind them before turning to him. "It's too nice to go inside just yet. Want to walk back to the park?"

"Sure," Kevin answered, and really, he would have followed her anywhere, with her shiny hair and her blue eyes and her honey-and-feathers voice.

They took a seat on one of the benches by the playground, and watched the moon rise in silence. A breeze picked up, cooling the air slightly, and he wished that he had a jacket to wrap around her. With meticulous caution, he moved just a little bit closer and waited for her to speak.

"Do you have lots of pictures of your mom, Kevin?" she asked suddenly, and it wasn't quite the question that he was expecting.

He had decided on complete honesty with her, though. It would be only fair, because nothing came of lies. "I guess... my dad put away her pictures at our place, but Auntie has albums full of them, from when she was a little girl all the way til... til the end."

She nodded, and pulled a wallet out of a pocket. Opening it, she took out a sheet of glossy, slightly faded paper that looked to have come from a magazine some time ago. "This is the only picture I have of mine."

Curiously, Kevin took a look, and his eyebrows winged up in surprise. It was one of those artsy fashion magazine advertisements for designer perfume or something, and the woman in the ad all but dripped glamour and grace as she stared out at the viewer over a bare shoulder. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, with flawlessly coiffed ash-blonde hair, and though her eyes were a cool, hard green rather than summer sky blue, the resemblance to Mina was unmistakable.

"Her name is Daphne Bell. Or at least, that's what she's billed as. I'm not actually sure if that's her real name," Mina's voice was soft, and her cornsilk hair fluttered around her face in the breeze. "My dad's name was Aaron Atherton. He was in the Marines, along with Willie Harmon. They were best friends from the day they'd enlisted."

"Mm-hmm," Kevin murmured, and in the movement his hand made to turn the picture that she was showing him closer, his fingers brushed hers. Instead of touching the picture, he took her hand instead, and their fingers laced together.

"They both fought in the Gulf War, Willie and my dad. It was my dad who pushed Willie out of the way when a shell exploded, which saved Willie's life. But the explosion made Willie hard-of-hearing in one ear, so he was honourably discharged from duty. He met Charity Parker at the University of Georgia after he returned Stateside, and my dad was the Best Man at their wedding. That was about a year before I was born. My dad was in the Marines still, and once on a stop in Britain, met Daphne Bell at a pub where she was working as a promotional model for some type of German beer. They were attracted to each other right off, and... well. He was only there two weeks, but they were never apart during those two weeks."

She took a long breath, and Kevin gave her hand a squeeze, silently urging her to continue.

"He'd only just gotten back home when he received a hysterical phone call from Daphne. She was pregnant, and she'd only just gotten booked at Storm Models, and it would have been completely inconvenient for her to have and keep a baby at that point. Willie told me that they'd gotten into an awful argument, that he'd never heard my dad so angry before, ever. To make a long story short, my dad paid Daphne good money not to abort his baby, took care of her living and medical expenses while she was pregnant, and after I was born, he went back to England to pick me up and take me back home. By then, he no longer loved her, not since she threatened to get rid of me. Marriage wasn't ever in the equation."

Here she laughed, lightly but sadly. "He hadn't the foggiest idea how to be a dad, not really, but he tried. Once, he bought me this Barbie doll when I was just a baby, and like most babies, I stuck everything in my mouth. I nearly choked on Barbie's tiny little high heel. But he loved me, of this I had no doubt. I might've moved more times than I cared to count, and gone to about ten different daycares between the ages of three and six, but he'd always swing me around and around and just laugh with me. He never told me about my mother not wanting me, only that she wasn't able to be with me."

"Where is he now?" Kevin was afraid to ask this question, but it had to be asked nonetheless.

Mina sighed, and put the magazine clip-out back in her wallet, her wallet back in her pocket. "He was among the troops sent to Kosovo in 1999, after the war was technically over. To help refugees return home and all that, you know. Well... he ended up getting killed by a land mine about a week in. I knew... I knew before the news came. I knew because he didn't come home in time for my birthday like he promised." In the moonlight, her eyes glistened with just a hint of unshed tears. "Willie and Charity had been taking care of me while he was gone. After the news came, they told me that I'd always have a home with them. Willie'd always said that my dad would have done the same for him had the circumstances been reversed, and Charity... Charity lives up to her name. In any case, they've been parents to me in all the ways that count, from the time I was six. I know that they receive a stipend from the USMC for taking care of me, but it's not about money, really. They opened their home and hearts to me and it was through them that I got to really know my dad." Her smile was sad and wistful, but her voice remained calm, and she met Kevin's gaze unwaveringly. "You have all kinds of memories of your mother, Kevin. Treasure them, and treasure the time you had with her. And... don't forget that there are people who love you. It's very important."

He nodded, feeling as though he was sealing a solemn promise, and reaching for her, he pulled her into his arms. It was rather forward and perhaps not appropriate, but she didn't protest, and after all, she had given him a hug yesterday. For several minutes, neither of them spoke, perhaps both wordlessly mourning as they traded heartbeats in the still and silent park. Finally, Mina broke the silence.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me, either." Her words were slightly muffled against his shoulder, and he smiled wryly as he stroked a hand through her flowing hair.

"I don't," he said honestly. "How could I?"

"Hmm?" She pulled back enough to look at him questioningly.

"You've experienced loss which would have turned most people into assholes," he said bluntly, reaching out and brushing the remnant of a single tear off her cheek. "But instead, it's made you warm, understanding and sympathetic." Taking the plunge, he went with the first thing that came to mind. "You know, when I first saw you, I just couldn't get over how hot you were."

She flushed at that. "I... oh come on."

"I mean it," Kevin said hurriedly. "I've never seen anyone who could hold a candle. Supermodel mom, maybe. And then, after you helped me buy groceries and I saw you with the kids, I just thought you were a sweetheart, a nice girl. But now... now I know that aside from that, you're tough. You're all these things, so... how could I feel sorry for you?"

Perhaps it was the right thing to say after all, because after a moment, she smiled and relaxed and leaned against his shoulder. "That might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me," she told him.

He wondered what the boys of her acquaintance were smoking, but decided to press his advantage, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders again. "Mina?"

"Hmm?"

"I... er," Nerves had him hesitating, clearing his throat. "Do you want to do something together sometime?"

Her eyes glittered beneath a sweep of blonde lashes. "Are you asking me out?"

"Umm, yes, I guess so. That is, if you don't have a boyfriend or anything, and if you'd like to. You don't have to if you don't want to, and I promise I won't get mad or anything."

She laughed softly at that and linked hands with him again. "There's no Little League practice tomorrow, and the adults will all be home, so I don't have to babysit. We could go catch a movie."

He felt sure that he was grinning like a fool, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Okay. I'll pick you up. What's a good time?"


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: All right, a brief chapter here, but I really couldn't combine this and the next chapter into a single one as they'd be too long. BUT! In time for Valentine's Day, I'm posting TWO chapters, so hopefully that will make the three or four people following this fic happy ;) Thanks to those who reviewed, I appreciate it! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Same as always.

* * *

Sunday afternoon, as Aunt Emmaline worked on her knitting in the parlour while humming along with the Temptations, Kevin dialed the number to his father's office.

This time, as he expected, it was not Tracey who picked up the phone, but John himself, on the first ring. "Ellis, Lowenstein and MacIntyre Accounting," his father's voice came through the line, and Kevin was struck by how defeated it sounded.

"Dad."

"Kevin," John cleared his throat, perhaps to regain his composure. "How are you?"

"I'm all right," Kevin answered, taking a seat. "Getting used to the heat and stuff."

"Oh." This phone conversation would be awkward, as the others had been, but for once, Kevin didn't care.

"Look," Kevin sighed, and propped his elbows down on the counter. "I just called to apologize. For the other day, when I pretty much just called you to cuss you out. I know that it's as tough for you as for me right now."

"Oh." This time, the monosyllable held surprise, perhaps a bit of shame. "You lashed out, that's normal for your age, I guess. I'm sorry too. I've not been there for you, and I should have been."

Kevin shrugged, though his father couldn't see it. "We both could've done better, probably. But you don't take it out on me, so I shouldn't have taken it out on you." He recalled Mina's soft words, the sadness in her eyes when she'd spoken them. "Hey, just remember that there are still people who care, okay?"

For a few moments, the line was completely silent, and Kevin wondered if John had hung up. And then, with a long sigh, his father spoke again. "That sounds like something your mother would've said if she caught either of us in a funk."

Kevin almost smiled at that, and the mention still hurt, but it wasn't as bad as before, somehow. "Probably. Hey, you should go on home, take it easy. It's a Sunday for godsakes, and you're at the office."

"There's not too much to do at the crib," John said wryly.

"Probably a crap-ton of laundry and dirty dishes at this point," Kevin jibed, and his father actually laughed.

"Well, there is that," John mused. "I guess I could head out once I finish going over this one account."

"Yeah, you do that," Kevin said, and remembered something else. "Oh, hey, dad? Could you do me a favour?"

"Sure, what?"

"In my desk, bottom drawer, there's a wooden box about the size of a deck of cards. Could you Fed-Ex it here?"

"Sure thing," John answered. "Anything else?"

"No," Kevin said. "Don't work too hard."

He hung up the phone and belatedly noticed that the sounds of music had stopped. Emmaline was still seated, placidly working on her knitting, though she looked up with a smile when he entered. "Hello, dear," she greeted him.

"Hey, Auntie. Are you sure you're okay with me borrowing the car tonight?"

"Oh, of course," Emmaline's smile grew. "You're a good boy, Kevin. I'm sure you won't be out drinking alcohol and being a young hoodlum or anything so disappointing."

The idea of young alcoholic hoodlums in her pretty, peaceful neighbourhood was almost laughable. "I won't be back too late. I'm just going to see a movie."

"How nice," Emmaline patted his hand as he sat down next to her. "You just go and have a good time with Mina, dear. She's such a sweet girl, and so pretty, isn't she?"

Kevin admitted that she was, indeed, while wondering how Emmaline knew that they had a date. He was fairly sure that when he asked to borrow the car earlier that day, he'd made no mention of it.

"You should wear that light blue button-down shirt, since you look so handsome in it," Emmaline declared. "Do you know how to iron, dear?"

No, he didn't, but he had a feeling that he was going to learn, like he'd learnt to mow a lawn, or make scrambled eggs, or cope with his grief. Reaching over, he gave the plump, smiling little old lady a quick hug before going to fetch the ironing board.

***

Two hours later found him on the porch of the Harmon household, in his newly pressed shirt, staring up with not a little trepidation into the face of an enormous, unsmiling black man with a shaven head and arms like Christmas hams crossed over a barrel chest. There was a tattoo of an anchor over one enormous bicep. William Harmon, Sr., surveyed him through piercing black eyes, and it was all Kevin could do to meet his eyes.

"You'd be here for Mina, I assume," the man's voice was deep and measured.

Kevin nodded, and hoped that the seven-foot ex-Marine didn't have any guns close by. "Yes, sir. I'm Kevin. Kevin Ellis."

"Hmm." Willie didn't step back to let him in, and continued to pin him with the x-ray-like scrutiny. An odd memory of his sensei's words in the dojo floated back to him. Don't lower your eyes to an opponent before a match, not even when you bow. Kevin kept his head up and held Willie's gaze. Suddenly, Willie's face broke out in a wide grin that looked just like Miss Penelope's, and held out a hand for Kevin to shake. "I do know who you are, boy. My kids won't stop talking about you."

Kevin wondered if those 'kids' included Mina, but decided not to ask. "It's nice to meet you, sir."

Willie's handshake was firm, not bruising in the way that Kevin had almost feared, and he used it to pull Kevin into the house. "Come on in, then. Mina will be right down. Just take a seat, and tell me a bit about yourself."

Some of his trepidation must have shown on his face despite his best efforts, because Willie let out a deep, booming laugh. "And don't look so nervous! I don't keep my guns in the house where my kids can get to them."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Aaand here we have the first date! And we finally get to meet our antagonist. Three guesses as to which character he's supposed to be and the first two don't count :P Anyway, hopefully this chapter meets with people's approval and all that stuff. Happy V-Day to those celebrating it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

They made it to the movie theatre in time and safely. Kevin, through a conscious effort, kept his eyes on the road instead of on Mina, and didn't think that he got caught staring at her. She was dressed simply but prettily in a yellow knee-length sundress and white sandals, with a minimal amount of makeup and no jewelry aside from a pair of gold studs at her ears, and when she smiled, her radiance brightened a room. Kevin let her pick the movie, and would have sat through a weepy chick flick if it meant two hours of sitting next to her, fingers brushing when they reached into the popcorn bucket at the same time, but she chose the latest X-Men flick, and they filed into the theatre carrying two frozen Cokes and a jumbo bucket of popcorn. They got seats in the middle of the back row, and the previews were just starting when they sat down.

When a preview for an upcoming horror/thriller type movie came on, she tensed just a little, and squeaked when the villain popped onto the screen, blades flying. The hand closest to him grabbed his and squeezed, and he held on with a mental note of thanks to whichever gruesome slasher was going to be wreaking havoc on the big screen come Halloween.

Their movie started, and she watched, rapt, as the plot unfolded and mutants of all kinds fought and angsted on-screen. Sometime in the middle, when a male character and a female character had a tender moment, she leaned her head against his shoulder, and he shifted closer to her, breathing in the light, fresh scent of her hair. Later on, when another character looked as though he might not make it, he noticed a tear slide its way down her cheek, and he quietly pushed a napkin into her hand. She dabbed at her eyes, and linked fingers with him, and hung onto every word.

At the end of the movie, he only remembered the bare bones of the plot, but he knew just how her hand, with its tapering fingers and slightly chipped red polish on the sensibly short nails, felt in his.

The night was still warm, with just a hint of a breeze which lifted strands of Mina's hair as they left the theatre. Mina's dress was sleeveless, and when she leaned closer to him, Kevin found the courage to wrap an arm loosely around her shoulders.

They were about halfway to his car when someone called her name.

Mina paused, and Kevin turned to see a tall boy wearing baggy, low-slung pants and a tight white muscle tee. Several chains dangled from his neck and waist, and a cigarette drooped negligently from thin lips. His eyes were half-hidden by scruffy bangs under a baseball cap turned backwards, but even then, a glitter of sneering lust was plainly visible.

"Dan," Mina greeted him calmly enough, though she involuntarily drew closer to Kevin.

"How've you been, princess?" The boy named Dan drew on his cigarette and blew a smoke ring towards the sky. "It's been a while since we've talked, hasn't it?"

"I guess so," Mina said politely. "Aren't you too young to be smoking?"

"It's just a fucking Marlboro, not like I'm toking crack or something," Dan sneered. "Now who's your friend, baby? Aren't you going to introduce us?"

Kevin tightened his hold on Mina and stared the other boy in the eye. "Kevin Ellis," he answered evenly, with the faintest of eyebrow-raises. "And you are?"

"Kevin, this is Dan Burright," Mina murmured softly. "We used to attend the same high school and sit next to each other in Geometry before he got transferred to the alternative ed high school. Dan, this is Kevin. He's from New York."

"Like the Statue of Liberty and Park Avenue and Times Square and all that shit?" Dan laughed. "How cute."

"Adorable," Kevin said dryly, though his eyes had iced over. "A pleasure," he continued, though nothing could be further from the truth. "Mina, I should probably get you home, hmm?"

Before Mina could do more than nod, Dan laughed, an ugly, cruel sound. "What, you mean you're shelling out and not looking to get a piece of that ass? Baby, since when did you start up being a fag hag?" He reached out a hand to twirl a strand of Mina's hair. "Pity. I'd have shown you a good time tonight. Maybe I still will."

Kevin's hands shot out before he could even process what he was doing, and even as Mina jerked her hair out of the boy's grasp, Dan Burright took a hard fist to the solar plexus. The cigarette flew out of his mouth and landed a few feet away as he doubled over, and when he charged at Kevin, still choking from the blow, a strike and throw knocked him sprawling. Tight-lipped and stormy-eyed, Kevin stared down at the prone figure on the ground.

"You don't get to touch her, talk to her, stare at her, or even breathe on her." The words were snapped out in a soft, icy tone. "I don't think you're worth scraping off her shoes, let alone going to jail for, so I'm going to leave you right there to think things over. If you ever bother Mina again, though, I won't leave you conscious. If you think I'm fucking around, you'll learn otherwise."

Before their harasser could get back to his feet, Kevin pulled Mina towards the car. They got in quickly and silently, and he drove out of the parking lot with his hands clenched on the steering wheel. It was about two blocks down from the theatre that she started talking.

"He got expelled from our school for bringing in cigarettes and alcohol, and smoking weed in the bathroom. A few fights with people, mouthing off at teachers. I was nice to him in class because... well, there's no reason to be a jerk. He asked me out a few times before he got expelled, but always in a rather nasty way, so I always made excuses."

"I see," Kevin took a deep breath, let the remnants of anger flow out with the exhale. "Not everyone can be gracious, I guess."

She reached out, and because both his hands were on the steering wheel in white-knuckled fists, touched his arm. "I'm sorry, though. I really am. You shouldn't have had to listen to that."

Slowly, atom by atom, his muscles relaxed, his grip loosened. As he braked the car at a red light, he glanced at her, and linked his hand with hers. "Hell with that. You shouldn't have to put up with that type of harassment. I don't give a damn about what he says about me."

"You put him on his back with like, two punches," Mina said with a bit of awe, and instead of feeling proud of himself, Kevin simply felt grateful that the altercation hadn't gone beyond that. He shrugged with a bit of embarrassment.

"I wish it didn't happen at all, and that it didn't come to that," he said a bit self-consciously. "I started taking karate six years ago because it seemed cool, and I wanted to be like Bruce Lee. I knew it had practical uses, which might be more in place in the crappier parts of New York, but I wasn't about to get into it with people over here. Everyone else has been so nice."

"What he said was uncalled for," Mina sighed as Kevin pulled onto their street. "He didn't even know you."

She seemed sadder about the way that Dan Burright had talked about Kevin than the way he'd leered at her, and Kevin put the car in park in front of her house even as he turned to face her. "It's because you were with me, nothing else. It's because you're so beautiful and kind, and he doesn't know how to deal with it."

That drew a small smile out of her, and his face mirrored the expression. "For what it's worth, I had a good time tonight aside from that," she told him. "It was a really good movie, too."

"I don't remember most of it," Kevin confessed softly. "I spent more time watching you."

He watched as different emotions flitted across her flawless, expressive features. Surprise, embarrassment, flattery, and something that made his heart beat a little faster. All around them, through the slightly ajar car window, came the sweet stillness of a Georgian night, with its cloudless sky and magnolia-scented air and the rhythmic drone of cicadas. She leaned in across the faded gray upholstery of the seat and pressed her lips to his, and his hands itched to just yank her into his lap and lose himself in her. With iron self-control, he kept the kiss gentle, stroking one hand down the sleek length of her hair even as he clenched the other around the steering wheel.

At length, she pulled back, her lips dewy, her eyes bright. "They left the porch light on for me," she murmured with a faint smile as she unbuckled her seat belt. "I should probably go in."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded, and couldn't help the smile that spread. "Willie might get his guns out otherwise. The man looks like a bouncer. Junior keeps eating the way he does, he'll be the entire defensive line in his high school football team."

Mina giggled, and he couldn't help but lean over and kiss her again. Cigarette-smoking loser notwithstanding, Kevin rather thought that it had been a perfect evening. She got out of the car and waved at him before making her way up the driveway and the sidewalk. Turning when she reached the porch, she smiled and blew a kiss before unlocking the door and disappearing into the house.

Kevin barely remembered to drive the car back into the garage and didn't feel the floor under his feet all the way to his room.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Hope everyone had a happy Day of Pink, followed by an even happier Day During Which Chocolate Goes On Sale! Thanks to those who reviewed as always, and those who are still reading this piece of work. Here's the next chapter, and I hope everyone likes it! As always, feedback is awesome and makes me happy!

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it. If you don't recognize it, I still may not own it. I'll get back to you on that one...

* * *

Kevin was certain that he would have been subjected to a two-against-one interrogation by Aunt Emmaline and Miss Penelope the next morning, but they simply gave him indulgent smiles when he came downstairs. He was in too good of a mood to be truculent about possible prying, so he greeted them with a smile in return and after breakfast, went outside to water the flowers, including the patch of newly planted forget-me-nots. So far, none of them had sprouted up yet, but the other plants were thriving, and to keep Aunt Emmaline happy, he made sure that there were no weeds.

When he came back inside, Miss Penelope had gone, and Aunt Emmaline was sitting in the parlour looking through her photo albums. She looked up with a smile both calm and wistful when he sat down next to her.

Sooner or later, he'd have to face up with everything, and he thought that it may as well be now. Bolstering himself with a memory of Mina's words, of remembering that there were people who cared about him, he looked down at a photograph of his mother at her high school graduation.

"What was she like then, Auntie?"

Emmaline sighed, and patted his knee. "Laurie was always such a sweet, loving girl. I'm sure you knew that, because she was your mother, but she just had that spark in her, you know? She was very popular in school, and was homecoming queen." She flipped through the album, and a photograph of Lauren, pretty and youthful in a mint-coloured dress and a little rhinestone tiara smiled up at them. "She always wanted to help others, and used to volunteer at the Community Centre on the weekends instead of being out all hours of the day and night like some of her classmates. A few of the other girls thought she was square for doing that, but she didn't mind."

She turned back to the graduation photo, and her smile was full of pride. "She did well in her classes and got a scholarship to Cornell. She got to New York, and for the longest time, even though she loved her classes and enjoyed the college experience, she was very lonely. She used to call home every night. And then one day she ran into your father on the campus, literally crashed all into him, because he was rushing to get to a professor's office hours after getting out of class. Well! He didn't make office hours that day, and stayed back to help her pick up all her books. Her voice was different when she called that night, and I just knew."

She gave him a sidelong look and patted his hand again. "It's not hard to tell when someone's fallen in love. They glow."

Kevin cleared his throat awkwardly. "I guess."

"Anyway, she and your father were an item all throughout their college years, and he worshipped the ground she walked on. He went on to study business and she became a medical assistant, and after he got a job at his firm, they got engaged. He bought her engagement ring not a month after he started working, and they were very happy."

"Do you think she liked New York?" Kevin asked Aunt Emmaline. "It's... it's just very different from here, and she grew up here. She never quite lost her southern accent, and it sounds very different from native New Yorkers."

Emmaline turned the photo album to the page where Kevin's parents stood smiling at the camera on their wedding day. Both John and Lauren wore radiant smiles. "It didn't matter, really. She was happy, because she had love. She could have lived in a desert and been happy as long as she had him and she had you. Oh, I know how much you and your father loved her, but I can say that she loved you back just as much. Lauren always had such a great capacity for love, and I think that you take after her like that."

"Do you?"

"Yes indeed," Emmaline shut the album gently and turned to look at Kevin directly. She smiled, her usual placid, slightly vague smile, and her soft doe eyes held all-encompassing knowledge and wisdom. "She would have liked your Mina, I think. Of course, not just because Mina's a sweet girl, who cares for others the way that she did, though she'd appreciate that. But because Mina's put a smile on your face, and even thinking about her makes you feel happier. Did you have a good time last night, dear?"

"Uh, yes, yes I did." Kevin awkwardly fiddled with one of the doilies on the end table. There might have been a microscopic speck of dust on its filigreed surface.

"That's good," Emmaline said mildly. "Penelope says that your girl was all smiles this morning, and she could overhear Mina singing in the shower. People only do that if they're happy, you know."

The image of Mina singing in the shower wasn't exactly where his mind wanted to go quite at that moment, so Kevin remained silent and manfully nodded. Emmaline carefully placed the photo album on the coffee table.

"The county fair starts today and runs until the Fourth of July," she told him with a smile. "Maybe sometime, you can take Mina. It's always a lot of fun."

~*~

Kevin bought another glass of lemonade from Junior that afternoon, as the two young entrepreneurs were back in business, Frankie apparently paroled for good behaviour. With it, he acquired a bit more information, and armed with the knowledge of Mina's evening schedule and whereabouts, he sought her out the day after that after Little League practice was over for the evening.

Perhaps the children that she coached knew what was going on, or perhaps the way her eyes lit up when he arrived gave her away. Either way, more than one of the girls giggled when he approached her as she was putting the equipment away, and the children made themselves scarce quicker than usual.

Mina happily agreed to meeting up with him at the fair the next day, and once again, he helped her put her things away in the locker room as the sun set outside. He was tempted to kiss her in there as he watched her hang up her cap, a lustrous fall of golden Rapunzel hair cascading down her back, but remembered that there were two kids waiting just outside the door. She was aware of his scrutiny, however, and blushed visibly as she took his hand and walked out of the locker room with him.

They did sit outside on the porch for a few minutes after the kids went inside the house, and talked about everything and anything as the sky darkened around them and the stars came out. Kevin saw a shooting star, and even as he pointed it out and Mina gasped in surprised pleasure, he impulsively made a wish, even though he didn't believe in such things.

He was slightly apprehensive about kissing her right there, where Willie Harmon and his scary Marine training and guns could see them and take exception, but she seemed not to be concerned. As he walked back across the street, still feeling the imprint of her fingers against his face and tasting her lips on his own, he guessed that if he were to be shot down right then, he'd at least die happy.

The fair was like most events of its kind, all sweet sugar smells and calliope music and colourful lights. He met her in front of the carousel, and for a few minutes, they were content just to watch the brightly decorated horses and unicorns carrying laughing children around in leisurely circles.

They watched jugglers and saw prize-winning agricultural products. Kevin bought her a spool of pink cotton candy, and when her hands grew sticky from it, she rinsed her fingers off at a drinking fountain like a child might, and he found it strangely endearing. They rode a ferris wheel, and when it got to the very top, he kissed her as the night wind tangled her hair, and she tasted of everything sweet and right in the world, and as it came back down, he wondered how he was to do without her when the summer drew to a close.

But it was still June, and there was still time to figure that out. They walked around, and Mina stopped at a colourful game display rack of teddy bears of various sizes and colours, a glint in her eyes.

The hawker caught sight of her and smelled a buyer, and smiled widely. "Two dollars for three baseballs, and three dollars for five. You throw them at the bottles, and can win a prize based on how many you hit. What do you say, honey?"

"Why not?" Mina grinned, and pulled three dollars out of her wallet. "Let's go for five."

She took the five balls and set them in a row on the ground in front of her after stepping back. Blue eyes full of intense concentration, she picked up the first one, winged it. One bottle flew off with a clink, and Kevin clapped.

She ended up hitting four of the five, and beamed as the hawker gestured a shelf of decently sized teddy bears. Picking a light blue one, she held it out to Kevin with a sassy smile.

"It reminds me of Grumpy from the Care Bears. Rather broody, but very lovable nonetheless."

He had to laugh at that, even as the hawker expressed admiration for her aim and declared her to have an arm like a catapult. Tucking the bear under one arm, he wrapped the other around her shoulders, and together they walked away as the night fell again. For a moment, before they got to his car, he had the oddest sensation that they were being watched, but he couldn't see anyone around aside from the families milling around by the parking lot and a few people around his age loitering and talking amongst themselves by the entrance, eating hot dogs. Dismissing the feeling, he drove her home, and when he noticed a Fed-Ex parcel on the porch of Aunt Emmaline's house, asked her to wait for a moment for him before going inside.

He opened the packaging and took out what he needed before going with her, and when they entered the Harmon household, Miss Penelope greeted him cordially. In the den, Louise was thumbing through a Teen Vogue and Angelina was playing baseball on the Wii. Junior, however, hung back in the kitchen and simply watched as Kevin exchanged pleasantries with his grandmother and two sisters. Only after his female relations turned back to their original activities did he come forward, and shyly but determinedly tug on Kevin's sleeve.

"Yes?" Kevin turned to the boy, who seemed almost preternaturally solemn.

"I want to talk to you, Mister," Junior said in his most adult voice. Kevin, willing to oblige, followed Junior to the kitchen, where he waited for Junior to sit down at the counter before taking a seat himself.

"Is something wrong?" Kevin asked.

Junior shook his head, and his dark, innocent child's eyes met Kevin's gray ones squarely. "You're really stuck on Mina, aren't you?"

This topic he wasn't quite expecting, and he simply nodded. Junior sighed before sneaking another look at Kevin.

"I'm going to be the man of the house when I'm bigger, you know. I'm small now, but mama and daddy always say that it's important to be nice to womenfolk 'cause it's the gentleman-like thing to do and stuff. Not all boys who are stuck on girls are nice to them. Danny Elmer is stuck on Mary-Beth Richardson and all he does is pull her hair on the playground during recess until she cries or hits him or something." Junior assumed his most solemn and severe expression, which looked almost comically out of place on his round little face. "I just want you to know that if you're stuck on Mina but not nice to her we won't be able to be friends any more. And that when I get bigger, I'll make you leave her alone."

The childish declaration of brotherly protectiveness touched Kevin, and he held out a hand for the boy to shake. "She's lucky to have you to look out for her, Junior. But I promise that I'll never be mean to her or make her upset."

Junior's face cleared, as this had been an issue of concern ever since Angelina had declared to everyone that Kevin must be totally stuck on Mina from the way he looked at her at practice. He grinned, looking more like his usual self, and shook hands with Kevin.

"I have something for you, by the way," Kevin said after the agreement had been sealed, and reached in his pocket. "It was at my house, but my dad mailed it over."

Junior looked at what Kevin held out, and his mouth dropped open. Abruptly abandoning all dignity, he bounced up from his seat like a spring. "WOW! That's Derek Jeter from the Yankees and that card's one of only a hundred! Are you sure it's for me?"

"Yeah, you can have it," Kevin handed over a forty-dollar baseball card without a thought. "We're friends, right?"

"Gee, thanks!" Junior's face was suffused in a huge grin, and he hugged Kevin impulsively. "Thanks for the card, Mister, and for promising not to be nasty to Mina and stuff." The words were slightly muffled against Kevin's stomach. Kevin blinked, then found himself chuckling as he reached down and patted the little boy's head.

Neither of them were aware that Mina and Miss Penelope had stood at the entrance of the kitchen and overheard the whole exchange. Neither of them saw Mina press her face into the sturdy shoulder of the shorter, older woman and muffle a choked sob.

Kevin wasn't quite sure why, when he was leaving the house, Mina ran out after him and threw her arms around him on the porch. He couldn't really protest, though, and held her for a long time, a plush blue teddy bear sandwiched between them.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Not all is hearts and flowers in Magnolias-verse, and so this chapter proves. It's kind of a downer, I'm afraid, but things will get better! Also, we get to see some other characters! Thanks as always to those who are reading, and I hope that all of you are enjoying this fic! As always, comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!

Disclaimer: The usual.

* * *

Kevin knew that something was dreadfully wrong as soon as he and Mina arrived in the park. People looked at you differently when they associated you with something distasteful, a mix of smug pity and disgust in varying degrees depending on how much someone bought into rumours. Maybe it was that which had him laying a hand on Mina's arm before she could advance further into the park and towards the baseball diamond.

Mina, more trusting than him, turned to call out a cheerful greeting to the tennis instructor who usually used the courts in the evenings. The twenty-something-year-old young man raised an eyebrow instead of saying anything in response, and she frowned in bewilderment before turning to Kevin.

"Do I have something on my face?"

"No," he answered slowly, though he frowned as well. "Is it just me or are people looking at you really funny?"

"I guess they are, but I'm the same. Let me just go and fetch my things out of my locker so we can get ready for practice," she murmured, and walked deeper into the park.

Someone wolf-whistled her as she passed the track, and Kevin glared at the joggers and walkers as he tried to locate the culprit. Mina blushed, and minutely examined herself to make sure that none of her clothes were askew or unfastened.

"Hey blondie," a boy no older than thirteen chortled from a bench by the playground. "Nice tits."

It took all of Mina's strength and quick reflexes to prevent Kevin from going after the boy and pounding him to the ground. Her face pale and shocked, she ducked her head and tightened her grip on Kevin's hand as she dragged him away from the middle-schooler and towards the direction of the pool.

"Mina!" Two voices, one male and one female, called out to her simultaneously, and Kevin saw two people running from the direction of the pool towards them. One was a lanky boy with sun-bleached sandy-blond curls and a golden summer tan, the other a petite girl with pale skin and a bob of blue-black hair. The boy wore swim trunks and a polo shirt, and the girl wore a utilitarian-looking one-piece swimsuit and a red whistle. They both had apologetic looks on their faces and in some indefinite way seemed to complement each other as they came to a stop in front of Mina.

"Zach, Amy," Mina greeted them. "Aren't you guys supposed to be off-duty an hour ago?"

"We were," the girl named Amy answered. "We were informed of a situation in the locker rooms, and..." she turned to Zach, and bit her lip as though uncertain how to go on.

"Mina, someone vandalized both the men's and women's locker rooms, and... well, they graffitied your name and phone number all over the walls, the bathroom stalls, the lockers. 'For a good time call...' You get the drift." The boy named Zach spoke softly, and his green eyes were full of sympathy.

"What?!" Kevin snapped before a shell-shocked Mina could respond. Gunmetal gray eyes hard and deadly as steel pinned Zach's. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Zach measured his man, noted the cold fury in Kevin's eyes, and didn't offer a hand to shake as he normally might have. "My name is Zachary O'Connor. This is Amy Anderson. We're lifeguards here, and as we were shafted with the close shift of the pool, as it were, part of our duties include checking the locker rooms after the pool closes to make sure that everyone has left, no one's dropped wallets, keys or any other personal belongings, etc. We don't really check during the day because we have to be out watching the kids to make sure they don't drown or anything, and when we went in there this afternoon..." He trailed off, and sighed even as Amy pulled a flabbergasted, unresisting Mina into a hug. "It could have been anyone. Tons of people go through those locker rooms on a hot day like today. We were just about to call the cops when you came."

"No," Mina said dully, her face hidden behind the curtain of her hair as she sat down heavily on a bench, still holding onto Amy for support. "That'd just make this a bigger deal than it already is. Whoever did this would want that, I'm sure. I don't understand why anyone would do that to me, though." Her hands shook as they clenched in her lap, and Kevin felt a sick, angry feeling of helplessness.

"Sweetie, you should at least go on home. Forget coaching today, everyone's already being a douchebag out there," Zachary murmured, reaching out and patting her shoulder.

Mina raised her head, and in her eyes, Kevin saw something that he'd never seen before. They were distressed and shiny with unshed tears, but in their sea-blue depths was a martial light of defiance. "No."

"Mina, you really should take it easy," Amy said softly. "No one would think the less of you for it."

Mina's hands balled into fists. "I would think less of me," she said softly but resolutely, and stood up on her shaky legs. "Let me in so I can get my stuff."

Zach and Amy exchanged glances, and stepped aside. Kevin, heartsick and miserable for her, took Mina's hand and walked with her every step of the way.

The women's locker room smelled of bleach and graffiti remover, and there was a dirty rag on the floor in a bucket of water. Amy followed behind them, and mumbled something about how she'd tried to scrub the stuff off the walls. She hadn't finished it all, and clearly visible on both bathroom stall doors were crude caricatures of a girl with a baseball mitt and a bow in her hair and greatly exaggerated breasts, her home phone number written in lurid red underneath. Mina sagged against Kevin, thoroughly shaken, and he pressed a fierce kiss to her hair even as his blood boiled.

Numbly, Mina turned the dial on the combination lock and pulled her locker open, and pulled out the bag of bats with leaden arms. Wordlessly, Kevin took it from her and led her out of there. "How did they get your number?" he asked her quietly.

"School directory, probably," Amy answered for Mina before turning to Kevin, an earnest, grave expression in her navy blue eyes. "Hey, you stay with her, all right? Zach and I are going to clean up the rest of that junk and put a tip in with the police to watch this area. She doesn't want it publicised, so I won't, but this is my workplace and I'm not having some petty, mean-spirited fool defacing it." Her voice was soft but firm, and Kevin nodded, feeling a little bit more at ease.

The trek towards the baseball diamond was torture, as staring eyes followed them the whole way there. But Mina's team was waiting, and perhaps the kids were too young to understand, or their loyalty to their coach exceeded their attention to malicious mischief. Either way, they were on their best behaviour, and played to the best of their ability. After they went through their usual drills without any complaints, Mina raised her chin and went about as though everything was normal.

"Hey Coachy!" A taunting voice called out just as the next batter stepped up to the plate. A boy of about eight or nine, grimy-faced and big-boned, leered at her around a mouthful of Tootsie pop. "Heard you're quite the hot commodity these days. Do you do younger guys?"

Even as Junior jumped up from his seat in the bleachers, shouting "YOU SHUT UP, DANNY ELMER!" at the top of his lungs, a baseball flew out like a bullet and hit Danny Elmer smack in the stomach. The Tootsie pop flew out of his mouth as he fell ingloriously backward.

"SHANE!" Mina called out, shocked. Her pitcher lifted up the brim of his cap, guileless blue eyes meeting hers.

"I was practicing my curveball, ma'am, just like you said I should." Shane's voice was ostentatiously respectful when he said this, before he raised his chin and hardened his tone. "And I was aiming for his nose. Guess I still got a bit to go before I get it right."

Her right fielder, a freckled girl with two thin braids of red-brown hair, contemptuously nudged the prone form of Danny Elmer out of the way before picking up the ball and winging it back to the pitcher. Shane caught it, and keeping his eyes fixed upon Danny Elmer with a cold glare, enacted an elaborate wind-up in preparation to pitch. Under the glares of the whole team and facing another hurled projectile, this time likely to break his nose, Danny Elmer struggled to his feet and ran off.

With what could only be qualified as a smirk, Shane turned back to the game as Angelina stepped up to the plate. The girl gave him a grin of pure gratitude as she hefted the bat to her shoulder.

"Kids, we don't hit people with baseballs, even if they're being rude, because that's not sportsmanlike," Mina said weakly. She sat down on the stands, and the game came to an abrupt halt as they all ran towards her. Kevin watched as she was surrounded on all sides and enveloped in half a dozen childish hugs.

"We love you, Mina," the right fielder declared in her high, lilting voice. "No matter what any mean people say. They can go and... and get spanked!"

"YEAH!" All the others chorused in agreement. In tandem, they returned to the field, and the game continued as though it hadn't been interrupted at all. Kevin and Junior sat down next to Mina, one on each side, in silent support.

After the game was over, Kevin walked with her back to the pool lockers, and followed her into the women's locker room. Amy had been busy in the interim, and while the place smelled strongly of cleaning chemicals, the walls and lockers were clean. As Mina put her things away, Kevin excused himself to find one of the lifeguards.

He found both lifeguards and a police officer sitting on a bench in the men's locker room, the latter filling out a report. The men's locker room had not been cleaned, Zach deciding against it until the police were there to take photographic evidence. Zach and Amy both looked up as Kevin walked in, and even as Amy continued to describe what had happened to the officer, Zach stood up to talk to Kevin.

"Did you guys find anything to clue you in on what might have happened?" Kevin asked quietly.

"Still no idea what time it all went down," Zach murmured. "It had to have happened between the time I started and four in the afternoon, though, but that's still a period of six hours. We were kind of busy and someone called off, so Amy and I didn't get a chance to leave the poolside at all. The only thing I found out of place was an empty pack of Marlboro Reds and a few butts in one of the bathroom stalls. As the butts were in the toilet though, hard to use them for evidence, even by the cops."

Kevin's eyes sharpened as he recalled a boy in the parking lot of a movie theatre. "I see," he said softly. "I know who it is."

"Don't do anything stupid," Zach cautioned him. "With no proof, it'd be on you."

"I don't plan on doing anything stupid, but the next time I run into him, he's toast. So, he'd better hope not to run into me anywhere."

Zach shook his head and cleared his throat. "Hey, I don't know how long you've known Mina, but just so you know, she dislikes conflict, so really, don't look for trouble." Despite his words, Zach himself was visibly upset, and scowled at the wall of the locker room. "Well, he's not going to get very far if he thinks he can come back up here." Something about his voice and his expression led Kevin to believe that the other boy also knew Dan Burright, and had dealt with him in the past as well. Kevin wanted to ask, but refrained. Zach sighed and gave him a long look. "I've known Mina since we were kids. Don't do anything to upset her, is all." The big-brotherly tone of subtle warning in Zach's voice caught Kevin's attention, and he knew that the blond lifeguard wasn't just talking about picking fights with the suspected graffiti artist.

Kevin gave a terse nod, but knew that at the moment, the priority would be getting Mina home, not getting any type of vengeance on Dan Burright. He left the locker room and met Mina outside the women's.

"Let's go home," he murmured, and led her away.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Okay, this chapter's pretty much just fanservice. And... very important words. Yeah. Something like that. And I'm going to warn right now that there's non-graphic hanky panky. Don't bother flaming, please. This chapter is dedicated to VO1 since... yeah, she was the one who requested... well, you'll see.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Kevin laid awake and troubled in his room a long time after Aunt Emmaline had gone to bed, mind going through the horrific events of the evening. Even when he closed his eyes, he could still see, in sharp relief and too much detail, the shocked heartbreak on Mina's face when she saw her name and phone number scribbled all over the walls. Her light had gone out across the street a while ago, and his heart ached for her.

Graffiti had never seemed like a big deal when he'd lived in New York, just as much a part of the urban landscape as taxicabs and parking meters. Here, though, in this idyllic southern town, it was dramatic and cruel and of all the people who could possibly be targeted, Mina deserved it the least.

He wished that there was something that he could do, anything at all, to turn back time or take her pain away.

When a tapping sound came on his window, he ignored it at first, thinking it to be the branches of the magnolia tree blowing in the wind. But it became more insistent, and he sat up from his bed, pushing back the covers before going over to investigate.

His eyes widened when he saw Mina, wearing a pretty, feminine cotton nightgown trimmed with frills at the neck and ribbons at the cuffs, perched on the boughs of the magnolia tree. Shocked, he opened the window further and pulled her inside. She stepped wordlessly in his arms without a word of greeting.

"Hey," he whispered, vainly wishing that he was presentable and wearing more than just a pair of boxers. "What are you doing here?"

"When I got home," Mina's voice was muffled against his neck, her arms tight around his waist. "Charity was angry, angrier than I've ever seen her. Someone had crank-called the house because of... of what was on those walls. She tracked down who it was via caller ID, and it was some girl from my school, a stupid cheerleader type who ACTUALLY does like what I'm rumoured to do. She drove all the way to the girl's house and gave her the what-for in front of her parents. She'd just gotten home before I did, and I had to tell her all about what happened. She went and unplugged the phone for the rest of the night." Her voice hitched, and Kevin held her closer. "It's not fair! It's not fair! They did nothing but take me in, and now they're getting this kind of crap because of me? And I don't even know what I did to get someone to hate me so much and do this, either!"

He felt the first wet drops of her tears against his bare skin and sat down on his bed, pulling her into his lap and holding her as she cried it out. Thanking heavens that Aunt Emmaline had gone to sleep hours before, he let her weep it all out, holding her and stroking her hair softly. Her shoulders shook and her tears came in a torrent, but after a while, she calmed, and gradually seemed to regain a bit of her composure.

The room was silent but for their breathing, hers ragged and uneven, his slow and measured, and he wiped her wet cheeks with his fingertips. Solemnly, he gazed into her tear-swollen eyes. "Hey," he whispered. "You should take your own advice, maybe."

She hiccuped. "What's that?"

"Remember that there are people who love you," he answered, lying down on the bed, still holding onto her. She fit next to him like a puzzle piece, her face nestled in the crook of his shoulder. "That's why Charity was so mad, that's why Shane threw that ball -- great pitch, by the way-- into Danny Elmer's gut, that's why Zach and Amy stayed after for hours to clean up the mess in the locker rooms." He kissed her temple, then her still-damp cheek. "It's not your fault, you know. And no one-- no one who matters, anyway-- thinks less of you because of it."

She nodded, docile and quiet as a mouse, and curled into his side. "I'm sorry for barging in on you like this," she whispered at length.

"I don't mind," he told her softly, and he wanted to add that he was part of those who loved her, but it didn't seem like the time to say so. "You're welcome, anytime."

Perhaps the tears that she'd vented had drained her as much as they had calmed her. In any case, she sleepily mumbled something unintelligible against his neck and cuddled closer, closing her eyes. Turning onto his side so that he could wrap his arms around her, he pulled the covers up over both of them and did the same, letting her draw on his strength and warmth so that she could fall asleep.

~*~

Kevin awoke gradually, bewilderedly, some time before dawn. The sky outside was indigo, and the air was warm and silent. Turning his head, he caught Mina looking at him strangely.

It took but a minute to recall what she was doing there, and he reached up to smooth some of her mussed blonde hair behind her ear. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she whispered. The remnants of tearstains on her cheeks had all but disappeared, and in the darkness, her eyes glittered. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's all right," he answered, though he was uncomfortably aware that her nightgown had hiked up to mid-thigh while she slept, and her bare, silky legs were entwined with his. "Did you sleep any?"

She nodded, and stared into his eyes for a few moments longer, as though coming to a decision. When she spoke, he had to lean closer just to hear her. "Kevin, you know that what they wrote on those walls was false, right?"

"Of course," he answered, cupping her cheek with one hand. "I didn't doubt it for a moment."

"I'm not a slut," she murmured, her calm blue eyes still fixed upon his face as she propped herself up on her elbows. "In fact, I've never... well, I've never done anything with anyone before."

"Oh," he looked at her quizzically. "That's okay."

"I've never been in love before, that's why," she whispered, and before he could say anything in response, she dipped her head and pressed her lips to his.

He kissed her back without thinking, pulling her over him before his mind could process her intentions, and unlike the previous times they'd kissed, it didn't remain gentle and controlled. It was the feel of her gentle fingers stroking down the bare skin of his sides that alerted him. With a groan he couldn't quite suppress, he pulled her away by the shoulders, just far enough to stare into her eyes. "Mina, you're... we..."

"Do you love me back?" she asked quietly, and his breath left him in a whoosh, but he kept his eyes locked with hers.

"Yes," he answered softly. "With all my heart."

"Okay," she nodded. Leaning down, she kissed him again, and took his hands in hers. Carefully, she guided his fingers towards the bottom hem of her nightgown. Slowly, with careful reverence, he lifted it up inch by inch.

It wasn't completely smooth or practiced, but it wasn't as awkward as it might have been. In the predawn haze, she was pale and perfect, all long limbs and slim curves and smooth skin. His hands shook as they touched her for the first time, and the wonder and nerves in his eyes reflected in hers. He moved slowly, afraid to hurt her, and his muscles quivered from the strain of holding still when he took her. She clung to him with arms and legs, moaning softly when he moved, and he kissed all the skin he could reach. Later on, when both of them lay back on the bed, spent, he pulled her close and ran his fingers through the cool, damp silk of her hair.

Outside, the sun was rising. He simply held her close, her steadying heartbeat echoing his. "Are you sorry?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"No," she answered, her hand resting on his bare chest over his heart. "Just so long as..."

"As what?"

"As you meant what you said," she murmured, glancing up into his face.

"Oh," he felt a smile flit over his face. "Yes, I have, from the first."

She smiled, and stretched, and kissed him again, but gently and lightly. "I should go before I'm missed," she whispered as she pulled away.

He couldn't help but stare as she rose from his bed, naked and almost glowing in the dawn light. She picked up her nightgown from the foot of his bed and pulled it back over her head, and finger-combed her hair. He got up and kissed her one last time at the window, and watched as she nimbly and quietly climbed back down the magnolia tree and snuck back across the deserted street and into her house.

He went downstairs about two hours later, after taking meticulous care to tidy up his room and his person of any signs that someone had visited during the night. Aunt Emmaline was already awake, and smiled up at him when he walked into the parlour.

"Good morning, dear," she said benignly. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah," came the laconic reply, though he didn't meet her eyes.

"That's good," she nodded sagely, before cocking her head to the side and giving him a questioning look, though her smile remained on her face. "Didn't Mina want to stay for breakfast, dear?"

Kevin face-faulted.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: So, this chapter's the fluff you guys get before there is more ang-- I mean plot. Also, this fic is about 3/4ths done!! After this, I'll get around to putting up the Zach and Amy one. And so on and so forth. Thanks for staying with me, those who are!

Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

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June eased into July in sultry days and dreamy nights. Kevin took on the task of bringing Aunt Emmaline to a physical therapist so that she could walk again, and spent an hour every day supporting her as she slowly and carefully took her first steps around the house and the garden. He took particular care with the latter, and all the flowers he'd bought, with the exception of the forget-me-nots, were flourishing in summer glory. The forget-me-nots had sprouted, tiny mint-green leaves and delicate stems, but thus far there were no blooms. Kevin took it philosophically.

Fourth of July found both of them attending a barbecue with the extended Harmon family in the park. Kevin met several more of Miss Penelope's grandchildren, from a wide-eyed baby named Cedric who giggled irresistibly whenever someone tickled his stomach to a tall, capable young woman of nineteen named Paula who was following in her grandmother's footsteps and studying nursing in Michigan. There was enough food made to sate even Junior's formidable appetite, and as the night fell, Kevin sat on a blanket with Mina a bit away from everyone else as the fireworks started up, her back against his chest, his chin resting on her shoulder. Her small, delicately formed hands rested over his bigger ones, and she smiled as she stared up at the fountains and cascades of light in the sky.

Perhaps it was due to Zach and Amy's vigilance, or the police visit to the pool, but no more degrading graffiti appeared anywhere in the park, and though Charity told off a few more prank callers in the next few days after the incident, Mina, with the support of everyone around her, continued about her business with little further repercussions. Kevin spent the majority of his free time with her, sometimes at the park, sometimes at one of their homes.

Several feet away, Junior squealed in excitement as another fireball shot up to the sky and burst in a rosette of rainbow colours. Mina leaned closer to him, and her hair tickled his nose. It smelled like flowers and cook smoke, and at that moment, here with her and among people who cared without question about him and their own, in a park muggy with the heat of a summer in the south, he finally felt as though he could let go of his grief.

Perhaps Mina felt something settle within him, because she turned her face to look at him, and she was smiling. "Happy Independence Day," she whispered, and really, it was.

Kevin, so undemonstrative as a rule, leaned forward and caught her lips with his own, in full view of all the people who made up their families. Dimly, he was aware of Louise's giggles and Paula's teasing applause and Aunt Emmaline's sigh, but it just didn't matter.

She was blushing when the kiss ended, and ducked her head, strands of blonde hair sliding forward to hide her face. He picked up one of her hands, still linked with his, and kissed the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. "I love you," he murmured against her pulse, and he knew, from the glow in her eyes, that she heard him even over the boom of the fireworks.

It was approaching one in the morning when he and a hugely sleepy Aunt Emmaline had finally gotten home, and it was a few hours after that when he was awakened, once again, by tapping on his window. There she was again, looking like a young angel framed by magnolias and honeysuckle in her cream-coloured nightgown, the moonshine shimmering like frost over the yellow gossamer of her hair.

"Aren't there hordes of people at your house?" he asked when he pulled her inside the room.

"Yeah," she answered. "I'm sharing a room with Paula, who's covering for me because she thinks you're a cutie." A stray white petal fell from her hair, and she smiled up at him. "Something's a bit different with you. You're happier, somehow. I could feel it when we were sitting together in the park."

"It's Independence Day," Kevin said, and lay back down on his bed. Across the room, on the top of the dresser, a blue teddy bear sat next to a ship in a bottle. She lay down next to him, sharing his warmth and space, and he smiled softly. "I'm always going to miss her. I'll always be sorry that she's gone, and that it had to happen that way. I'll always regret the things that I never had a chance to tell her. But I can go on, and I can be happy again. I am. Happy, that is. I know how she felt, and I can understand my dad at last."

"I wish that I knew her," Mina said softly as she turned to her side, one arm resting loosely over his chest. "She sounds like a wonderful lady."

"She would've liked you," Kevin mused, echoing Aunt Emmaline's words of some time earlier. "Not just because you make me happy, but because you're you. God, I could take years and I still wouldn't be able to tell you everything I love about you."

"You could try to show me," she murmured, her eyes shining in the darkness. She traced her fingers over the warm, smooth bare skin of his shoulders, and her soft words and softer touch sent need surging through him. He turned, pinning her to the mattress with his body, and swallowed her breathless little laugh with his mouth.

Afterwards, as both of them were battling exhaustion and her hair covered their bodies like a cloak of gold, he remembered one of the stories that Aunt Emmaline had told him about his parents, before they were married, when they were happy and young and giddily in love.

"Mina," he whispered against her shoulder.

"Mmm?" she didn't open her eyes and sleepily cuddled closer to him.

"There's an Italian restaurant in town not too far. Want to have dinner there sometime next week?"

Her lips curved up slightly even as she pulled the covers over both of them. "Okay."


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: So, yeah. All I have to say is... don't kill me? Please? This is NOT the end, I swear!!

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.

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The Italian restaurant was called Il Pastorale, and was a graceful stone building shaded by trees. The lighting inside was soft and subtle, and though it was a Saturday night, the restaurant was quiet and peaceful. The hostess, after confirming Kevin's reservation, led them to a small booth by a window, where sheer curtains the colour of honey filtered in sunlight and cast the area in a warm glow. The waiter, clad in a crisp white shirt and black ribbon tie, introduced himself as Antonio and asked them what they wanted to drink as he set down the menus with a flourish.

Mina ordered a glass of lemonade and Kevin asked for a mineral water, and the waiter nodded, eyes all for Mina. When he'd walked off, Kevin turned to Mina with a raised eyebrow.

"He was checking you out, you know."

She blushed and smoothed down the skirt of her dress. It was white today, simple and feminine, and it was clear that she'd taken some efforts tonight, and she'd be turning more heads than the waiter's before the night was out. Kevin wasn't sure if he should tell her that she looked just as beautiful with no makeup and windblown hair peeking out from underneath a baseball cap and smudges of dirt on her cheeks.

They ordered bruschetta and a tomato caprese salad to start off, and then lingered over chicken marsala and linguine with white clam sauce. Mina asked dozens of questions about New York, no less curious than her adopted younger siblings, and as he answered them, his home seemed like a whole different world from the idyllic town where he was staying at present.

"I've never mowed a lawn before coming to Aunt Emmaline's," he confessed as he cut his chicken into bite-sized pieces. "Hell, there WERE no lawns anywhere around. Everyone was always so busy, in such a hurry, trying to do twenty things at a time. It's so different here."

"Do you think I'd like New York?" Mina asked, slowly twining linguine around the tines of her fork.

He tried to picture her there, a sweet, wholesome flower completely out of place in the steel and concrete universe, and frowned. "It's not what you're used to, that's for sure."

"So you think I wouldn't like it?" Mina persisted.

"It's hard to say," Kevin answered. "I think you're too... too good for it. There's a lot of crazy stuff that goes down in New York, and people are sometimes overly aggressive."

"I'm not quite as delicate as you think, you know," Mina's voice cooled just a bit, and he backtracked.

"That's not what I meant." When she continued to stare at him, he tried to find words to articulate his meaning. "It's just that... well, it's different. I sometimes think that New Yorkers have a whole different mentality from everyone else. There are all types of people, and I mean ALL types of people, and most of them don't give a crap about each other. And yet, it's very accepting in a way. Only in New York would you see, say, a sixty-year-old guy wearing top to toe black leather like he's from the Matrix or something, with his hair dyed purple and three rings in his nose, sit on the subway next to a business exec in a designer three-piece suit, and it would be not at all a big deal. And yet, nowhere in New York would a neighbour visit an elderly woman every morning after she got injured to make sure that she had everything she needed, and it's too dangerous and hectic outside for kids to be out hawking lemonade in the afternoons. God, it's like a different planet."

"Men are from Mars, women are from Venus," Mina quoted wryly. "I guess I understand what you mean."

"Are you thinking of visiting New York sometime?" Kevin asked, leaning forward, not daring to hope. They had never broached, not yet, the topic of what they'd do once the summer came to an end. It was half over, though, and they didn't have too much time left. Letting her go wasn't an option.

"Maybe," she mused. "Or perhaps going to school there. Darien-- he coached Little League before me-- is going to school out-of-state. He was valedictorian of his graduating class and got into Harvard." She laughed softly. "I'm not quite that brainy, but... I guess we'll see."

"You're going to stay in touch with me after this summer, right?" Kevin found himself asking urgently, reaching across the table and taking her hand in his.

Her fingers, so gracefully formed and yet so strong, gave his a squeeze. "I'm planning on it." Her smile was full of sweetness and warmth across the table. "You know, you say that you've never been anywhere like here, or met someone like me. I don't think I've ever met anyone like you, either."

"I'm nothing special," Kevin protested and shrugged. "I'm not nearly as nice as you are, not really."

"You came here to take care of your aunt instead of staying in the exciting big city for the summer," Mina murmured. "You learned how to plant flowers and mow lawns and buy groceries. You befriended little kids selling lemonade across the street and humoured preteens with thousands of questions about Broadway-- yes, they all talked to me about you-- and stood up for me to bullies without expecting me to fall all over you for any displays of manliness. You didn't freak out when I cried around you like most guys would do, and you hand my brother a limited edition baseball card like it's a candy bar after reassuring him that you'd never hurt me. God, Kevin, I'm the one who's nothing special, compared to you."

He was mortally afraid that he might have blushed, with the way that her eyes went all soft and dreamy as she spoke to him, and was eternally grateful for all the time that he spent out-of-doors, puttering with varying degrees of success in Aunt Emmaline's garden, hair lightened to platinum and skin tanned swarthy brown by the summer sun.

The waiter cleared his throat when he returned to top off their drinks, noticing that the pair at the table had eyes only for each other. "Any dessert for you two?"

They ordered a bowl of chocolate gelato and two spoons, and after finishing it and paying the bill, Kevin drove them back home. It was dark outside when he pulled the Oldsmobile into the garage, but not yet too late, and he walked back out to talk to Mina some more, not wanting the night to be over.

She was waiting for him at the end of her driveway, her white dress shimmering in the moonlight. As he reached the end of his driveway, she stepped onto the street, smiling, and started walking towards him.

Tires screeched, shattering the peaceful stillness of the night, as a car rounded the corner in a sloppy turn taken far too fast. It continued on, barreling straight towards Mina, and in the blinding, cruel glare of oncoming headlights, Kevin saw his life flash before his eyes. He had only a moment-- one moment to wonder what his mother had seen at the end of her life-- one moment to react.

Crossing the street at a sprint, he pushed her roughly, desperately out of the way, so close that he could all but feel the burn of the car's engine. Rolling onto the ground, choking from the pungent smell of gas far too close, he shouted out to her, the order audible even in the chaos.

"LIVE!"

He had a split second to register that the face of the driver seemed familiar before the world went black all around him. He didn't hear Mina scream his name.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Yeah, well, the cliffhanger gets unhung/unhanged/whatever. Thanks to those who did not decide to kill me, after all :) This fic is nearly done, only a few more chapters to go. After that, Zach and Amy's story.

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything.

* * *

The bed was too hard and he smelled antiseptic, not magnolias.

Kevin's eyelids felt as though there were thousand-pound anvils weighing them down, and it was several minutes before he could pry them open. After he finally managed, however, the lights hitting his pupils were so bright that he slammed them shut again. Simultaneously, a headache that felt like a band of steel around his brain swooped in, and he moaned.

"You're awake," a hoarse whisper sounded close by, and with a manful effort, he cracked open one eye to see who was speaking.

At first, all he could make out was a blur of cream and gold, but gradually, the person slid into focus. It was a girl, her heartbreakingly beautiful face tracked with tearstains and framed with a sheaf of mussed golden hair. His eyes took in trembling red lips, a grass-stained white dress frayed at the hem, and scraped knees and elbows. "You need some bandaids." His throat burned when he spoke.

"Oh, God, Kevin, you could have died, and all you say is that I need bandaids," her voice hitched, before she sniffled and tried to compose herself. "Do you... do you know who I am?"

"Mina," he rasped. Such a musical name shouldn't be spoken in such a rough voice.

"Yeah, it's me," she knuckled tears off her cheeks. "I have to get your father, and a nurse, and... just hold on." She hit the call button on a remote by his bed, and dashed towards the door of the room.

He barely had time to process that he was in a hospital room when John Ellis, all wrinkled Savile Row and red eyes, rushed into the room at the heels of a white-clad, raven-haired nurse. "What happened?" Every word sharpened the ache in his throat. "Can I have some water?"

Mina picked up a cup from the table, and when he tried to sit up, shook her head and held it at an angle so that he could sip from the straw. Dimly in the background, he was aware of a doctor entering the room and hovering about, conversing with the nurse.

"What do you remember?" The doctor was a woman, tall and rather stately, with blue-black hair and wire-rimmed glasses perched on her patrician nose.

"I was out on a date with Mina. At an Italian restaurant. We shared a bowl of gelato. The waiter was looking at her legs when she came in." It was rather demeaning that he couldn't seem to raise his voice above a sepulchral whisper.

His father blew his nose in a crumpled tissue and sat down heavily at the foot of the bed. "You two had gotten home and she was crossing the street to talk to you when that car came towards her... drunk driver, sixteen years old. You pushed her out of the way." John Ellis' usually tidy hair was standing up in spikes from the disordered rake of his fingers. "You managed to roll mostly out of the path, but it caught you in the shoulder and you were thrown a few feet and hit your head pretty hard."

"Which is why you have, in layman's terms, a helluva concussion right now," the doctor explained in a low, modulated voice. "You dislocated a shoulder in the fall and sprained your wrist, but you're very lucky." She busied herself in checking his vitals, his pupils and inspecting the IV that he belatedly noticed hooked up to his arm. "Do you remember any of what happened after you left the restaurant, what we just told you?"

Kevin tried to shake his head, but that action hurt so much that he could only wince. The doctor nodded, marked something down in her clipboard.

"Slight short-term memory loss is natural after a traumatic head injury. You'll recover it. I've prescribed paracetamol for the concussion, and you'll need to stay here for observation for at least another forty-eight hours." She smiled faintly, "You're young, and strong, and as your father explained, you did manage to roll mostly out of the way. Just take care, and your prognosis is good. I'm Doctor Mizuno, and your nurse is Holly. Don't hesitate to call if you need anything."

"Okay," Kevin sipped some more water and turned his head minutely towards the nurse. "Can you get Mina some bandaids for those scrapes she got?"

The nurse smiled softly and nodded. At his side, Mina set the cup back down on the table, collapsed in the chair by his bed, and sobbed.

~*~

Whatever medication Doctor Mizuno had prescribed him for his injuries was potent as hell. Kevin, not long after watching the nurse bring in bandaids and antiseptic wipes for Mina, fell back into a drugged stupor, aware only of the sensation of her soft hand loosely gripping his. Contrary to the old wives' tales about not being allowed to sleep with a concussion, he was left alone through the course of the night, and didn't know that Mina, stubbornly overriding the gentle suggestions of Willie and Charity and even his father, remained by his side the whole night through, curled up in the chair with a thin, utilitarian hospital blanket wrapped around her like a shawl.

He awoke to sunshine coming through the window and his father seated in a chair on the other side of his bed, suit jacket askew and wilted, tie nowhere to be seen. Mina was fast asleep, long lashes resting on tearstained cheeks. "Hey," he greeted John Ellis in a soft voice.

"How're you feeling, son?" John's voice was quiet, almost calm, but the shadows under his eyes spoke volumes.

"Like I've been beaten with a large mallet," Kevin joked weakly. "But I'm alive, right?"

"Yes, yes you are," John answered, and reached over to grasp Kevin's good hand with both of his own and squeeze fervently. "God, when I got the call..." He took a long, shuddering breath and scrubbed one hand over his eyes. "It was all a blur. Before I knew it I was in LaGuardia booking a flight. I spent the hours on the plane tearing up that in-flight catalogue they have for stuff you can buy from the duty-free shops into little pieces, I was so wrecked. I'm surprised the flight attendant didn't summon an air marshal on me."

"How long was I out?" Kevin asked.

"Day or so," John answered. A grueling, dragging, horrible eighteen hours. "Your girl ran inside her house, and her folks called an ambulance for you and let Aunt Emmaline know what was going on. She's awfully worried, but I called her when you came to."

Kevin would have nodded, but was mortally afraid that the motion would set the headache back in and he'd do something unmanly, like moan, when Mina could wake up and hear it. "What happened with the car who hit me?"

Here John looked away, and Kevin had the strongest feeling that if his father were anywhere but a hospital room, he'd be reaching for a cigarette. "Driver continued on after... after hitting you," John murmured. "Veered off the road, and collided with an oak tree at seventy. One of Emmaline's neighbours will be redoing their landscaping, that's for sure. The kid died instantly." He coughed, shook his head. "Someone Mina knew, by the name of Dan Burright. She's been too upset to talk, too shaken by what happened, but from what Willie Harmon says the boy was kicked out of school for drugs and alcohol."

The irony of it all was mind-boggling. Kevin shut his eyes for a moment and sighed. "I was going to kick his ass, too."

That wasn't supposed to be spoken aloud, and his father raised both eyebrows. "What was that?"

"He'd said nasty things to Mina once, when we ran into him in a parking lot. And then after I straightened him out, he went and graffitied derogatory things about her all over the place in this park where she coaches Little League," Kevin explained. "I was planning on beating his pointy head in if I saw him again."

His father simply shook his head. "Enough of that, I guess. I'm just thankful that you're alive." Reaching over for the box of Kleenex on the nightstand, he took one and blew his nose.

As the door opened to reveal Doctor Mizuno, Mina stirred and blinked open sleepy blue eyes on Kevin's other side. The doctor took in the sight of her, Kevin and his father, and smiled faintly.

"Well, good morning, Kevin. You're looking a little bit better, I'll say. You know that technically visiting hours don't start for another hour? Mina over there has yet to leave your side since you got here."

"Uh-huh," Kevin tried to sit up. "She's my girlfriend..." a questioning glance at Mina at the impulsively stated title, which was met with a soft smile and a nod. "So let it slide, yeah?"

"Oh, don't worry, I've a daughter about your age who recently got together with a boy, and I know exactly how young love works," Doctor Mizuno chuckled lightly. "I'm not here to chide any of you, don't worry. I just have to do a few tests, make sure everything's on track, and then you can visit with them as long as you wish."

She went about with just that, moving quickly and efficiently as she asked Kevin a few basic questions designed to test his memory. He didn't have any difficulty in remembering who the current president was, or his full name, or his home address, both in New York and in Georgia. Kevin guessed that the examination took about ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and then the doctor was up and making her way towards the door again in her sensible flat shoes, saying something about having someone bring up some breakfast for all of them.

"Ugh, hospital food," Kevin grimaced after the doctor had left. "What wouldn't I do for some of Miss Penelope's beignets right about now?"

That brought a light giggle out of Mina, which was his intention, and she took his hand. "They're all planning on visiting soon. I'm sure you could put in a request."

The idea of the whole Harmon family, plus Aunt Emmaline, piled into the small hospital room lionizing him made him feel awkward as a geriatric in a dance club. "They don't really have to do that. Oh, shit. I WAS here to take care of Aunt Emmaline," He glanced down at the ace bandage around his wrist and the IV hooked into his arm. "Has anyone been in to check on her?"

For the first time in months, Kevin saw a smile ghost over his father's features. "I've two weeks vacation coming, and I'm taking them now," John said. "Think Miss Emmaline will put me up for the time being if I help her out around the house and stuff?"

"YOU'RE staying here for your vacation to dust her furniture and mow the lawn and stuff?" Kevin found himself asking in quite a bit of surprise.

John nodded, eyes sad and wistful but resolute. "Yeah. I owe it to your mother. And I owe it to you. She's a great lady, isn't she? It's the least I could do."


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: There is only one more chapter, followed by an epilogue, and then this fic will be finished! It's been fun, and I hope everyone has enjoyed it!!

Disclaimer: I still own nothing.

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Kevin, to his great bafflement, found himself watching Aunt Emmaline's soap opera during the daytime while picking at an unapologetically bland lunch of chicken fingers, boiled green beans, mashed potatoes and applesauce. Mina, who'd kept vigil through most of the night, was napping at his side, on a makeshift cot constructed by pushing three chairs together in a row. John had left in order to see to Aunt Emmaline, and promised to return later with something more palatable.

The episode ended with a cliffhanger in which the tragically beautiful, sensitive Colette was attacked and left for dead via the machinations of the sultry and conniving Veronica and the sinister and wealthy Rafael. Things looked rather precarious for Colette, but Kevin knew by now that soap opera characters, rather like cockroaches, Olympian deities and bad mental images, never really died despite multitudinous attempts at extermination. Colette might have had her hands, feet and mouth duct-taped before she was thrown into the trunk of a car that got pushed off a cliff, but Kevin wasn't overly concerned. It wasn't real, and she'd remain alive to be found by one of the others. She'd be traumatized, recover partially, and go onto her next misadventure. She'd be more cynical and more withdrawn, but she'd continue to make errors in judgment and stupid mistakes and further mess up her life. Still, she'd stay alive.

His mother hadn't, and he nearly didn't. It must have been a matter of mere seconds from the time Dan Burright's car barreled around the corner and the time it crashed into a tree. As the soap opera's credits finished rolling and a commercial took its place, Kevin leaned back in his bed thoughtfully.

He survived.

He was seventeen years old, recently motherless, a first degree black belt in karate, a good student. He was a native New Yorker whose decision to spend his summer vacation in Georgia had changed his life in more ways than he could ever have imagined. In the course of less than three months, he'd learned how to scramble eggs, mow lawns, plant flowers and let go of past grievances. He'd made friends, taken on adult responsibilities, and fallen in love. He'd saved a life.

Two, perhaps, if he'd counted his own.

Most importantly, he'd learned how to live.

Next to him, Mina stirred, shifting sleepily before opening her eyes. They blinked twice before locking onto Kevin's, and she pulled herself into a sitting position.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost," she murmured.

"Not quite," he smiled at her. "I've just had an epiphany."

"Oh? What about?" she asked curiously.

"Life," he answered, watching the sunlight glint off her hair, the graceful shadows she cast on the wall. "God, you're pretty."

"You had an epiphany about life which involved how I looked?" Mina laughed. "Particularly seeing as to how I'm badly in need of a change of clothing and a hair brush."

"No," Kevin reached out and tweaked a lock of her hair. "That just sidetracked me for a moment. I had an epiphany that... well, life's what I do with it, how I see it, how I handle things. I mean, I could be a jerk and hate the world because of bad things that happen outside my control, and then miss out on the good because I'm so focused on what's wrong. I could blame everyone else for any problems I might have and keep making the same mistakes because I don't learn from them. Or... I could live and be grateful for what I do have, and realize that life can change in a matter of seconds, and handle both the good and the bad as it comes."

She smiled softly, and got up to walk over to his bed. "I like your epiphany," she whispered as she leaned down and kissed his cheek. "And for the record, I'm really, really glad that you're alive."

Kevin's response was cut off by the sound of footsteps, as a veritable procession of people came into his hospital room, headed by his father pushing Aunt Emmaline in her wheelchair. Miss Penelope carried a covered platter which filled the room with the delightful scent of beignets, but it was Junior, scampering behind the rest of his family, that brought the most meaningful present.

"Hey Mister!" Junior's voice was enthusiastic, unmindful of the solemn location. "We brought you some flowers! Miz Emmaline said to take them from her garden 'cause you planted them and all so it means more than buying them from the store and stuff. I get to carry them 'cause mama had us three kids guess a number between one and ten and I got it right." The little boy bounced up to Kevin's bed, waving his prize like a flag.

In his pudgy hand, delicately blue and flourishing, was a tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots.

~*~

It wasn't quite easy to settle into the role of invalid at first. Kevin had gotten a concussion once before, a minor one during a pick-up game of football where he'd been tackled too roughly by the opposing lineman, but there hadn't been any lingering effects then. It was undignified to the extreme that for a week afterwards, he suffered from headaches and ill balance, having to cling to the bannister of the staircase like a lifeline whenever he went up or down. It was even more undignified that between Aunt Emmaline and Miss Penelope, he was scolded lovingly whenever he tried to do anything more than the most basic of tasks for himself.

A police officer came to the house to take his statement about the accident, and didn't evince much emotion as he took down the information of what Kevin remembered. It would be impossible to establish whether or not Dan Burright intended any foul play, though autopsy reports indicated that he had more than twice the legal limit for alcohol in his bloodstream. In the end, they decided to treat it as an accident in which Kevin and Mina had been lucky to survive, and a part of Kevin was grateful. That would mean less questioning and other unnecessary harassment directed towards Mina or himself.

Mina visited every day, sometimes staying for hours, and that took some of the sting out of the confinement to the house. She came through the front door now, rather than the window, and always brought something with her. Sometimes, it'd be sweet treats, compliments of Miss Penelope or Charity. Other times, it'd be movies and a portable DVD player. One afternoon, she brought over the entire Matrix trilogy, and they watched all three movies, curled up next to each other on his bed with the DVD player resting on his legs. It felt as much like a date as the time he took her out to the theatre. She cried when Neo and Trinity died, and called herself an utter sap when it came to movies. Kevin was more interested in the fight scenes, but let her cuddle against his good shoulder when the sad parts came on.

It was early August when he went for another checkup with Doctor Mizuno and was given a clean bill of health. The headaches seldom bothered him any more, and while he still took the stairs slower than before, it was no longer a matter of clinging to the bannister for dear life as his head spun like a top. His father, who'd ended up staying a week over the time he'd had coming for vacation, flew back to New York with a promise to take his mother's pictures back out when he arrived home.

Kevin would go home himself two weeks later.

The first thing that Kevin did after he came back from the hospital was to go outside. The forget-me-nots that he'd planted in memory of his mother were blooming steadily, spreading like Lita said they might, and dotted the ground with pale green leaves and tiny blue flowers. He watered them and the rest of the plants, gratified to see that they were thriving.

Aunt Emmaline joined him, walking carefully with the aid of a cane.

"Think we did okay?" Kevin asked as the red-gold light of sunset illuminated the riotous flowers and velvety green grass.

She smiled, a smile that reminded him of his mother's, and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I think it's just where it's supposed to be now." He knew, without her saying so, that she wasn't talking about the flowers.

Together, silently and peacefully, they watched the sun dip below the horizon.

On the eve of his last day in Georgia, Kevin found himself at the park, watching Mina coach her Little League team like he'd done dozens of times before. The kids, who'd heard multiple, occasionally greatly exaggerated accounts of his thrilling heroics, cheered when he'd arrived, and it was half an hour before they stopped asking questions. At the conclusion of the practice, several of them shook his hand.

He walked home with Mina in the starlit dusk. Junior and Angelina scampered ahead of them, slurping at snow cones and discussing baseball stats, and paid them little mind. Kevin kept Mina's hand in his, and wished to hell that she could go with him.

"Hey, I've got something for you," she said softly when they reached her driveway. Digging into a pocket, she extracted a photograph.

It was taken the day of the Little League game, the day that he'd kissed her for the first time. Wisps of blonde hair escaping her baseball cap, she smiled up at him in the picture. She turned it over, and printed in neat, rounded letters, was her home address, telephone number and email. Carefully, he pocketed it and wrapped his arms around her.

"I leave first thing in the morning," he mumbled into the crown of her head. He felt her wrap both arms around his waist and squeeze.

"I know," she whispered before looking up into his eyes, her own sparkling and resolute. "I'm not going to say goodbye."

"Then don't," he nodded, reaching up to touch her cheek. "I'll see you again."

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him hard, heart and soul flowing into it, and he fisted his hands in her hair.

The next morning, as the plane took off from the runway, he stared at her photograph, committing her contact information to memory. When he arrived at LaGuardia, he stopped at a gift shop in the terminal and bought a frame for it before he went to wrangle with baggage claim.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Last chapter!! In which there is a cameo by yet another SMverse character, who eventually will get her own story. Epilogue coming soon, and then the Zach/Amy story! Hope everyone's liked Magnolias In Bloom, and thanks to those who've read and reviewed, it means more to me than I could ever express!!

Disclaimer: What do you think?

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Kevin's last year of high school started off uneventfully enough, all things considered. He'd kept the details of his time in Georgia to himself, for the most part, and received a few sympathetic looks from those classmates who'd spent the summer partying and living the high life. This he ignored, because it would be beyond pointless to try to explain to them that he wouldn't have changed anything in the last three months for the world.

Of course, not everyone bought the taciturn facade.

That his best friend Raye could take one long look at him the first day he was back, raise an eyebrow and say "Something's different about you" in her patrician, matter-of-fact voice, was no more or less than he'd expected.

"Yeah," he nodded as they made their way down the hall towards AP Chemistry together. "I'll tell you about it after school or something."

"It's a good different, though," she pronounced after eyeing him critically for a few seconds. She spared him a small smile as he opened the door for her. She walked in ahead of him, dark-haired and elegant and striking, blithely ignoring the way that most of the guys in class followed her every move and several of the girls stared covetously at her perfectly put-together designer outfit. Raye Harcourt, daughter of a prominent senator, had arrived at his high school two years ago, having made the controversial decision to withdraw from an extremely upper-crust and expensive all-girls' private school in Manhattan and live with her grandfather after her mother's death. Kevin had, on an impulse, straightened out a guy who'd trash-talked her in the parking lot on her first day, and they'd been close ever since. She'd been the only one not to offer sympathetic platitudes after his own mother had died, and he figured that he numbered among the very few guys in the school who've not viewed her as the token hot but inaccessible rich bitch. Neither of them were the emotionally expressive type, but they could read each other through the smallest nuances.

They met each other in the library after school, as was their custom. Raye was early, as was her habit, seated at a table far in the back away from the librarian's desk with her flawless finishing-school posture. She wasted no words as he set his bookbag down.

"So, it's a girl. What's she like?"

Kevin's eyebrow raise was the sole indicator of his surprise. "How do you know it's a girl?"

"You don't answer questions with more questions," Raye declared with a dismissive wave of a manicured hand. "I'm not an idiot, and you're all but radiating goofy lovestruck fuzzy-wuzzies. Well, okay, so no one else would be able to tell, since you're basically unfond of changing your facial expression or evincing grandiose emotions, but I'm me and you're you. Spill."

And so he did, and told her about his summer, about Great-Aunt Emmaline and the family that lived across the street from her. He told her about the awkward phone calls with his dad, the photographs that were now back up on the walls and desks at his home, about Little League games and magnolia trees and beignets and a world so much slower and simpler than New York. He told her about Mina, and didn't know that his eyes softened whenever he spoke her name.

Raye noticed, though, and for the sake of her friend, was glad. "She sounds like the perfect girl for you," she murmured, uncharacteristically gentle for a moment. "I'm glad you met her."

"I miss her," Kevin admitted aloud. It might be unmasculine to state such a thing, but Raye would never razz him about that.

"I can tell," she said quietly, before breaking the somber moment with a wicked smirk. "You should call her. Put it on three-way so I can listen in. I want to see what she's like, female friend's prerogative and all that."

"No!" He stared at her, agape.

"Oh, why not? Do you have phone sex or something?"

He gave her a light, half-hearted shove on the shoulder and glared at her. She laughed lightly and patted his arm, and her usually jaded eyes were kind. "You're happier, even though you miss her and such. I don't actually need to eavesdrop on you two or anything to be able to tell that she's good for you."

He ruffled her hair for a moment, easily ducking her swats, and smiled back for a moment. "You're going to knock some lucky guy head-over-heels, ass-over-teakettle, stupid in love with you someday, Raye. And then I'll have to ask to eavesdrop on YOUR conversations. Not to mention threaten to beat his ass if he makes you cry or something."

"Yeah, yeah, keep it up," she cracked, though her smile was genuine. "You're the one whose ass is going to get beat if you try to mess with the hair again."

***

Autumn turned to winter, and winter melted into spring. Kevin had kept in touch with Mina, talking with her on the phone at least once a week, and even more frequently via email. She got a cell phone for Christmas and they exchanged thousands of text messages throughout the course of the months.

He, with Raye's help in the selection process, bought her a gold heart-shaped locket for her seventeenth birthday in October and had it overnighted to Georgia. Then, when his eighteenth birthday rolled around a month later, she sent him a handmade scrapbook, filled with little bits and pieces of memories. There were pressed magnolia petals and forget-me-nots sealed under cellophane in the cover. After he'd received it, he'd called her, and they talked for hours.

His father only yelled a little bit when the astronomical phone bill came through, but it was better than not looking at them and leaving the checkbook for Kevin to pay them every month.

It was early April and the last day of school before spring break. Kevin, mind full of college admissions and a week free of homework and grilling Raye about some guy named Jake that she'd met somewhere-or-another that she actually seemed serious about, was eating a bowl of cereal over the kitchen sink when his father entered, knotting his tie.

"I'll pick up Aunt Emmaline after work from the airport," John Ellis' eyes were twinkling with something that Kevin did not know, but Kevin was preoccupied with other matters and didn't notice. "We'll have to take her out, show her around town. I think I can just about spare an evening for that before diving back into the chaos known as Tax Season. Feel up to it?"

"Yeah, sure," Kevin said around a mouthful of cornflakes. He headed to school, spoke briefly with his guidance counselor about his plans for college, and played twenty questions with Raye after class. She sniped at him briefly for being a nosy worrywart, but the shine in her eyes when she spoke of Jake reassured him somewhat.

He was busy checking information online on a college website when the door opened to signify the arrival of his father and Aunt Emmaline. With a smile, he looked up to greet her, welcome her, and then his expression changed to pure, disbelieving shock.

"MINA!" he all but leapt out of the computer chair. She was bundled up against the cool spring weather in jeans and a daffodil-coloured sweater and her smile lit up the room with its brilliance. With a laugh, she rushed forward and threw herself in his arms.

He twirled her around in dizzying circles, uncaring of the others in the room, and she giggled. "I wanted to surprise you. My family accompanied Miss Emmaline to New York for a vacation. Willie promised Junior and Ange a Yankees game and Louise a Broadway show. They're checking into a hotel, but I wanted to come here and see you first."

He pulled her close and stroked his fingers through her hair. "I love your surprise," he murmured. "I have one for you as well. I didn't think that I'd get to tell you in person."

"Oh?" she looked up at him expectantly, her eyes glowing with warmth and love. "Let's hear it."

Kevin's eyes encompassed everyone in the room for a moment, lingering on Aunt Emmaline's before meeting Mina's gaze again. "I applied to Emory," he told her quietly. "I just got the acceptance letter last week." A faint smile curved across his lips as she caught her breath. "I'll be going to school there in the fall. It's half an hour away from where you live, isn't it?"

She squealed and hugged him tightly. At the door, John Ellis gave an indulgent chuckle, somewhat tinged with sadness, perhaps remembering his first meeting with his wife. Aunt Emmaline brought a delicate lace hankie to her eyes and beamed.

"I guess they'll be together, hmm?" she asked John.

John watched as his son hugged Mina back, both of them radiating hope. "I guess they will."


	22. Epilogue

A/N: The epilogue!! I'm sure you guys didn't think I'd post it so soon, but... here it is! Thanks to all who've read Magnolias In Bloom and commented and stuff! In answer to some of the questions: I'm not going to actually write Serena and Darien's story, because I really have far too many WIPs and other plot bunnies and furthermore I'm just not really much of a S/D writer, but... I'll probably post a few outtakes featuring them, and you'll definitely see more cameos and appearances by both of them in the other fics to come. Basically the point of this whole 'verse is, yeah, how a bunch of disparate characters eventually come together and form a group and enter each other's lives. Sailor Moon's underlying message has a lot to do with fate, and reincarnation, and all that, so... I guess in an oblique way this is my means of exploring that.

Thanks again to those who've been reading this fic, and letting me know their thoughts and opinions. It really does mean a lot to me!

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything you recognize.

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*TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER*

The seventeen-year-old boy descended the stairs with a studied nonchalance, and entered the kitchen with an almost-irresistible smile directed at the blonde seated at the table. At the stove, his father was making scrambled eggs.

His mother would have none of it, though, and steely blue eyes pinned his gray ones over the rim of her coffee cup.

"Don't think for a _moment_ that I don't know about Sylvia Lennox sneaking in through your bedroom window last night, Aaron Ellis!" Mina's voice was severe, and her son couldn't see her lips quirking with amusement behind the coffee cup.

Aaron opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't get out much more than "But...!" before his mother shook her head.

"But nothing. I was young once, I know how it works, buddy, and I'm on to you." She smiled, though, as her husband set down a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her.

"We were just talking mostly," Aaron mumbled. "We didn't really do anything, much."

Kevin and Mina exchanged glances. It was twenty five years ago, almost to the day, when he'd come to this very house at the start of his summer vacation to take care of Great-Aunt Emmaline. He'd met Mina here, fallen in love with her here. Through his years of college, he'd visited on weekends and their bond had remained strong. It was under the magnolia tree that reached up to his window that he'd proposed to her after he finished school. When Aunt Emmaline had passed away ten years ago, she'd left the house to Kevin in her will, and he'd taken painstaking care of it even as he and Mina lived and raised their children under its welcoming roof.

Aaron lived now in the blue room, where Kevin had stayed so long ago. He'd be out in a year, though, off to college like his older sister Laura, who was in her first year at Columbia under the watchful eyes of her grandfather and her godmother Raye, and then it'd just be the two of them.

Kevin cleared his throat and managed a short lecture on responsibility and behaving oneself to his son, and hid his face behind the Sports pages of the newspaper while they finished breakfast. After Aaron had excused himself, he set the paper down with a laugh and took Mina's hand in his. In the morning sunlight, her wedding band glinted gold.

"I felt like such a hypocrite, saying all of that," he admitted as he handed her the paper. The headline read "Star Pitcher Shane Montgomery To Sign Another Year With The New York Yankees". Mina skimmed the article with interest, reading about her former protégé and brother-in-law-of-sorts before laughing and giving Kevin's hand a squeeze.

"Perhaps, but your son doesn't have to know that," she declared. "Mind, it was Sylvia that did the sneaking, really. Like I did. Maybe I should have a word with Lita about her daughter instead of just putting it all on Aaron."

"He could've controlled himself," Kevin stated, before shaking his head. "Or maybe not. I certainly didn't have much choice in the matter back then. You were so beautiful, so sweet." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles. "Still are. For days I lived in mortal fear that Willie was going to shoot me for putting my hands on his surrogate daughter."

"Willie's a big teddy bear. I don't know why no one believes me."

Kevin decided not to dignify that with a response and slowly finished his coffee. Willie had walked a stunning, white-clad Mina down the aisle towards him when they married, and the huge, intimidating Marine had wiped a tear from his eye when he'd placed Mina's hand in Kevin's. That, however, didn't stop him from patting Kevin a bit too hard on the back at the reception as he said "I'm placing that there little girl in your hands, now, after her daddy placed her in mine."

"Our boy will be fine," he told Mina slowly. "We raised him well, and instilled a sense of responsibility in him."

"Yes, I know," she replied as she got up to clear away the breakfast dishes. "But I'm still going to grill him just a bit, keep him on his toes." She smiled radiantly and beautifully as she turned on the kitchen faucet and started rinsing plates and glasses. "God, he looks just like you, too. I'm not too surprised Sylvia snuck in through his window."

When Aaron came downstairs in the early evening, he found his parents in the parlour. His mom was folding laundry and his dad was on the phone with his Uncle Junior, discussing the game on television. They were sitting side by side, curled up naturally against each other, and every once in a while, his dad would rub his mom's hair with his fingers.

He smiled fondly at them before grabbing his mitt out of the front closet. He had an hour before his Little League team's practice would start, and his girlfriend would be waiting for him at the park. Sylvia would be sitting in the bleachers, her chestnut curls framing her pretty face, chatting with her best friend Ava O'Connor, who worked at the pool. Her big brown eyes would light up and she'd smile that one smile just for him when she saw him.

He walked outside quietly, his flaxen blond hair glinting in the light of sunset. In the yard, the familiar sweet scent enveloping him like a warm embrace, magnolias were blooming.


End file.
